
Class . -PR 4{gGjL 
Book •Sdfe— 



The Spanish Gypsy. 




4 Spying a man upon the height, they traced his 
downward path." — Page 168. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY 



GEORGE ELIOT 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

C 3 



This work was originally written in the whiter of 
1864-65 ; after a visit to Spain in 1867 it was rewritten 
and amplified. The reader conversant with Spanish 
poetry will see that in two 0/ the Lyrics an attempt 
has been made to imitate the trochaic measure and 
assonance of the Spanish Ballad* 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



BOOK I. 

'Tis the warm South, where Europe spreads hef 

lands 
Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep : 
Broad-breasted Spain, leaning with equal love 
On the Mid Sea that moans with memories, 
And on the untravelled Ocean's restless tides. 
This river, shadowed by the battlements 
And gleaming silvery toward the northern sky, 
Feeds the famed stream that waters Andalus 
And loiters, amorous of the fragrant air, 
By Cordova and Seville to the bay 
Fronting Algarva and the wandering flood 
Of Guadiana. This deep mountain gorge 
Slopes widening on the olive-plumed plains 
Of fair Granada : one far-stretching arm 
Points to Elvira, one to eastward heights 
Of Alpujarras where the new-bathed Day 
With oriflamme uplifted o'er the peaks 
Saddens the breasts of northward-looking snows 
That loved the night, and soared with soaring 

stars ; 
Flashing the signals of his nearing swiftness 
From Almeria's purple-shadowed bay 
On to the far-off rocks that gaze and glow — 
On to Alhambra, strong and ruddy heart 



6 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Of glorious Morisma, gasping now, 
A maimed giant in his agony. 
This town that dips its feet within the stream, 
And seems to sit a tower-crowned Cybele, 
Spreading her ample robe adown the rocks, 
Is rich Bedmar : 'twas Moorish long ago, 
But now the Cross is sparkling on the Mosque, 
And bells make Catholic the trembling air. 
The fortress gleams in Spanish sunshine now 
('Tis south a mile before the rays are Moorish- 
Hereditary jewel, agraffe bright 
On all the many-titled privilege 
Of young Duke Silva. No Castilian knight 
That serves Queen Isabel has higher charge ; 
For near this frontier sits the Moorish king, 
Not Boabdil the waverer, who usurps 
A throne he trembles in, and fawning licks 
The feet of conquerors, but that fierce lion 
Grisly El Zagal, who has made his lair 
In Guadix' fort, and rushing thence with strength, 
Half his own fierceness, half the untainted heart 
Of mountain bands that fight for holiday, 
Wastes the fair lands that lie by Alcala, 
Wreathing his horse's neck with Christian heads. 

To keep the Christian frontier — such high trust 
Is young Duke Silva's ; and the time is great. 
(What times are little ? To the sentinel 
That hour is regal when he mounts on guard.) 
The fifteenth century since the Man Divine 
Taught and was hated in Capernaum 
is near its end — is falling as a husk 
Away from all the fruit its years have riped. 
The Moslem faith, now flickering like a torch 
In a night struggle on this shore of Spain, 
Glares, a broad column of advancing flame, 
Along the Danube and the Illyrian shore 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 7 

Far into Italy, where eager monks, 

Who watch in dreams and dream the while they 

watch, 
See Christ grow paler in the baleful light, 
Crying again the cry of the forsaken. 
But faith, the stronger for extremity, 
Becomes prophetic, hears the far-off tread 
Of western chivalry, sees downward sweep 
The archangel Michael with the gleaming sword, 
And listens for the shriek of hurrying fiends 
Chased from their revels in God's sanctuary. 
So trusts the monk, and lifts appealing eyes 
To the high dome, the Church's firmament, 
Where the blue light-pierced curtain, rolled away, 
Reveals the throne and Him who sits thereon. 
So trust the men whose best hope for the world 
Is ever that the world is near its end : 
Impatient of the stars that keep their course 
And make no pathway for the coming Judge, 

But other futures stir the world's great heart. 

The West now enters on the heritage 

Won from the tombs of mighty ancestors, 

The seeds, the gold, the gems, the silent harjws 

That lay deep buried with the memories 

Of old renown. 

No more, as once in sunny Avignon, 

The poet-scholar spreads the Homeric page, 

And gazes sadly, like the deaf at song ; 

For now the old epic voices ring again 

And vibrate with the beat and melody 

Stirred by the warmth of old Ionian days. 

The martyred sage, the Attic orator, 

Immortally incarnate, like the gods, 

In spiritual bodies, winged words 

Holding a universe impalpable, 

Find a new audience. For evermore, 



8 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

With grander resurrection than was feigned 
Of Attila's fierce Huns, the soul of Greece 
Conquers the bulk of Persia. The maimed form 
Of calmly-joyous beauty, marble-limbed. 
Yet breathing with the thought that shaped its 

lips, 
Looks mild reproach from out its opened grave 
At creeds of terror ; and the vine-wreathed god 
Fronts the pierced Image with the crown of 

thorns. 
The soul of man is widening toward the past : 
No longer hanging at the breast of life 
Feeding in blindness to his parentage — 
Quenching all wonder with Omnipotence. 
Praising a name with indolent piety — 
He spells the record of his long descent, 
More largely conscious of the life that was. 
And from the height that shows where morning 

shone 
On far-off summits pale and gloomy now, 
The horizon widens round him, and the west 
Looks vast with untracked waves whereon his 

gaze 
Follows the flight of the swift-vanished bird 
That like the sunken sun is mirrored still 
Upon the yearning soul within the eye. 
And so in Cordova through patient nights 
Columbus watches, or he sails in dreams 
Between the setting stars and finds new day ; 
Then wakes again to the old weary days, 
Girds on the cord and frock of pale Saint Fran- 
cis, 
And like him zealous pleads with foolish men. 
" I ask but for a million maravedis : 
Give me three caravels to find a world, 
New shores, new realms, new soldiers for the 
Cross- 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 9 

Son cosas grandes ! " Thus he pleads in vain ; 
Yet faints not utterly, but pleads anew. 
Thinking, " God means it, and has chosen me." 
For this man is the pulse of all mankind 
Feeding an embryo future, offspring strange 
Of the fond Present, that with mother-prayers 
And mother-fancies looks for championship 
Of all her loved beliefs and old-world ways 
From that young Time she bears within her 

womb. 
The sacred places shall be purged again, 
The Turk converted, and the Holy Church, 
Like the mild Virgin with the outspread robe, 
Shall fold all tongues and nations lovingly. 

But since God works by armies, who shall be 
The modern Cyrus ? Is it France most Christian, 
Who with his lilies and brocaded knights, 
French oaths, French vices, and the newest style 
Of out-puffed sleeve, shall pass from west to east, 
A winnowing fan to purify the seed 
For fair millennial harvests soon to come ? 
Or is not Spain the land of chosen warriors ? — 
Crusaders consecrated from the womb. 
Carrying the sword-cross stamped upon theii 

souls 
By the long yearnings of a nation's life, 
Through all the seven patient centuries 
Since first Pelayo and his resolute band 
Trusted the God within their Gothic hearts 
At Covadunga, and defied Mahound ; 
Beginning so the Holy War of Spain 
That now is panting with the eagerness 
Of labor near its end. The silver cross 
Glitters o'er Malaga and streams dread light 
On Moslem galleys, turning all their stores 
From threats to gifts. What Spanish knight is he 



IO THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Who, living now, holds it not shame to live 
Apart from that hereditary battle 
Which needs his sword ? Castilian gentlemen 
Choose not their task — they choose to do it well. 

The time is great, and greater no man's trust 
Than his who keeps the fortress for his king, 
Wearing great honors as some delicate robe 
Brocaded o'er with names 'twere sin to tarnish. 
Born de la Cerda, Calatravan knight, 
Count of Segura, fourth Duke of Bedniar, 
Offshoot from that high stock of old Castile 
Whose topmost branch is proud Medina Celi — 
Such titles with their blazonry are his 
Who keeps this fortress, its sworn governor, 
Lord of the valley, master of the town, 
Commanding whom he will, himself commanded 
By Christ his Lord who sees him from the Cross 
And from bright heaven where the Mother 

pleads ; — 
By good Saint James upon the. milk-white steed, 
Who leaves his bliss to fight for chosen Spain ; — 
By the dead gaze of all his ancestors ; — 
And by the mystery of his Spanish blood 
Charged with the awe and glories of the past. 

See now with soldiers in his front and rear 
He winds at evening through the narrow streets 
That toward the Castle gate climb devious : 
His charger, of fine Andalusian stock, 
An Indian beauty, black but delicate. 
Is conscious of the herald trumpet note, 
The gathering glances, and familiar ways 
That lead fast homeward : she forgets fatigue, 
And at the light touch of the master' s spur 
Thrills with the zeal to bear him royally, 
Arches her neck and clambers up the stones 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. n 

As if disdainful of the difficult steep. 
Night-black the charger, black the rider's plume, 
But all between is bright with morning hues — 
Seems ivory and gold and deep blue gems, 
And starry flashing steel and pale vermilion, 
All set in jasper : on his surcoat white 
Glitter the sword-belt and the jewelled hilt, 
Red on the back and breast the holy cross, 
And 'twixt the helmet and the soft-spun white 
Thick tawny wavelets like the lion's mane 
Turn backward from his brow, pale, wide, erect, 
Shadowing blue eyes — blue as the rain-washed 

sky 
That braced the early stem of Gothic kings 
He claims for ancestry. A goodly knight, 
A noble caballero, broad of chest 
And long of limb. So much the August sun, 
Now in the west but shooting half its beams 
Past a dark rocky profile toward the plain, 
At windings of the path across the slope 
Makes suddenly luminous for all who see : 
For women smiling from the terraced roofs ; 
For boys that prone on trucks with head up- 
propped 
Lazy and curious, stare irreverent ; 
For men who make obeisance with degrees 
Of good-will shading toward servility, 
Where good-will ends and secret fear begins 
And curses, too, low-muttered through the teeth 
Explanatory to the God of Shem. 

Five, grouped within a whitened tavern court 
Of Moorish fashion, where the trellised vines 
Purpling above their heads make odorous shade. 
Note through the open door the passers-by, 
Getting some rills of novelty to speed 
The lagging stream of talk and help the wine. 



12 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

'Tis Christian to drink wine : whoso denies 
His flesh at bidding- save of Holy Church, 
Let him beware and take to Christian sins 
Lest he be taxed with Moslem sanctity. 

The souls are five, the talkers only three. 

(No time, most tainted by wrong faith and rule. 

But holds some listeners and dumb animals.) 

Mine Host is one : he with the well-arched nose 

Soft-eyed, fat-handed, loving men for nought 

But his own humor, patting old and young 

Upon the back, and mentioning the cost 

With confidential blandness, as a tax 

That he collected much against his will 

From Spaniards who were all his bosom friends • 

Warranted Christian — else how keep an inn, 

Which calling asks true faith ? though like his 

wine 
Of cheaper sort, a trifle over-new. 
His father was a convert, chose the chrism 
As men choose physic, kept his chimney warm 
With smokiest wood upon a Saturday, 
Counted his gains and grudges on a chaplet, 
And crossed himself asleep for fear of spies ; 
Trusting the God of Israel would see 
'Twas Christian tyranny that made him base. 
Our host his son was born ten years too soon, 
Had heard his mother call him Ephraim, 
Knew holy things from common, thought it sin 
To feast on days when Israel's children mourned, 
So had to be converted with his sire, 
To doff the awe he learned as Ephraim, 
And suit his manners to a Christian name. 
But infant awe, that unborn moving thing, 
Dies with what nourished it, can never rise 
From the dead womb and walk and seek new 

pasture. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



13 



Thus baptism seemed to him a merry game 

Not tried before, all sacraments a mode 

Of doing homage for one's property, 

And all religions a queer human whim 

Or else a vice, according to degrees : 

As, 'tis a whim to like your chestnuts hot, 

Burn your own mouth and draw your face awry, 

A vice to pelt frogs with them — animals 

Content to take life coolly. And Lorenzo 

Would have all lives made easy, even lives 

Of spiders and inquisitors, yet still 

Wishing so well to flies and Moors and Jews 

He rather wished the others easy death ; 

For loving all men clearly was deferred 

Till all men loved each other. Such mine Host, 

With chiselled smile caressing Seneca, 

The solemn mastiff leaning on his knee. 

His right-hand guest is solemn as the dog, 
Square-faced and massive : Blasco is his name, 
A prosperous silversmith from Aragon ; 
In speech not silvery, rather tuned as notes 
From a deep vessel made of plenteous iron, 
Or some great bell of slow but certain swing 
That, if you only wait, will tell the hour 
As well as flippant clocks that strike in haste 
And set off chiming a superfluous tune — 
Like Juan there, the spare man with the lute, 
Who makes you dizzy with his rapid tongue, 
Whirring athwart your mind with comment swift 
On speech you would have finished by-and-by, 
Shooting your bird for you while you are loading 
Cheapening your wisdom as a pattern known, 
Woven by any shuttle on demand. 
Can never sit quite still, too : sees a wasp 
And kills it with a movement like a flash ; 
Whistles low notes or seems to thrum his lute 



14 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

As a mere hyphen 'twixt two syllables 
Of any steadier man ; walks up and down 
And snuffs the orange flowers and shoots a pea 
To hit a streak of light let through the awning. 
Has a queer face : eyes large as plums, a nose 
Small, round, uneven, like a bit of wax 
Melted and cooled by chance. Thin-fingered. 

lithe, 
And as a squirrel noiseless, startling men 
Only by quickness. In his speech and look 
A touch of graceful wildness, as of things 
Not trained or tamed for uses of the world ; 
Most like the Fauns that roamed in days of old 
About the listening whispering woods, and 

shared 
The subtler sense of sylvan ears and eyes 
Undulled by scheming thought, yet joined the 

rout 
Of men and women on the festal days, 
And played the syrinx too, and knew love's 

pains, 
Turning their anguish into melody. 
For Juan was a minstrel still, in times 
When minstrelsy was held a thing outworn. 
Spirits seem buried and their epitaph 
Is writ in Latin by severest pens, 
Yet still they flit above the trodden grave 
And find new bodies, animating them 
In quaint and ghostly way with antique souls. 
So Juan was a troubadour revived, 
Freshening life's dusty road with babbling rills 
Of wit and song, living 'mid harnessed men 
With limbs ungalled by armor, ready so 
To soothe them weary, and to cheer them sad. 
Guest at the board, companion in the camp, 
A crystal mirror to the life around, 
Flashing the comment keen of simple fact 



THE SPANISH GYPSY, 15 

Defined in words ; lending brief lyric voice 

To grief and sadness ; hardly taking note 

Of difference betwixt his own and others'; 

But rather singing as a listener 

To the deep moans, the cries, the wild strong joys 

Of universal Nature, old yet young. 

Such Juan, the third talker, shimmering bright 

As butterfly or bird with quickest life. 

The silent Roldan has his brightness too, 

But only in his spangles and rosettes. 

His parti-colored vest and crimson hose 

Are dulled with old Valencian dust, his eyes 

With straining fifty years at gilded balls 

To catch them dancing, or with brazen looks 

At men and women as he made his jests 

Some thousand times and watched to count the 

pence 
His wife was gathering. His olive face 
Has an old writing in it, characters 
Stamped deep by grins that had no merriment, 
The soul's rude mark proclaiming all its blank ; 
As on some faces that have long grown old 
In lifting tapers up to forms obscene 
On ancient walls and chuckling with false zest 
To please my lord, who gives the larger fee 
For that hard industry in apishness. 
Roldan would gladly never laugh again ; 
Pensioned, he would be grave as any ox, 
And having beans and crumbs and oil secured 
Would borrow no man's jokes for evermore. 
'Tis harder now because his wife is gone, 
Who had quick feet, and danced to ravishment 
Of every ring jewelled with Spanish eyes, 
But died and left this boy, lame from his birth, 
And sad and obstinate, though when he will 
He sings God-taught such marrow-thrilling 

strains 



1 6 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

As seem the very voice of dying Spring, 
A flute-like wail that mourns the blossoms gone, 
And sinks, and is not, like their fragrant breath, 
With fine transition on the trembling air. 
He sits as if imprisoned by some fear, 
Motionless, with wide eyes that seem not made 
For hungry glancing of a twelve-year'd boy 
To mark the living thing that he could tease, 
But for the gaze of some primeval sadness 
Dark twin with light in the creative ray. 
This little Pablo has his spangles too, 
And large rosettes to hide his poor left foot 
Rounded like any hoof (his mother thought 
God willed it so to punish all her sins). 

I said the souls were five — besides the dog. 

But there was still a sixth, with wrinkled face, 

Grave and disgusted with all merriment 

Not less than Roldan. It is Annibal, 

The experienced monkey who performs the 

tricks, 
Jumps through the hoops, and carries round the 

hat. 
Once full of sallies and impromptu feats, 
Now cautious not to light on aught that's new, 
Lest he be whipped to do it o'er again 
From A to Z, and make the gentry laugh : 
A misanthropic monkey, gray and grim, 
Bearing a lot that has no remedy 
For want of concert in the monkey tribe. 

We see the company, above their heads 
The braided matting, golden as ripe corn, 
Stretched in a curving strip close by the grapes. 
Elsewhere rolled back to greet the cooler sky ; 
A fountain near, vase-shapen and broad-lipped 
Where timorous birds alight with tiny feet, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 17 

And hesitate and bend wise listening ears, 

And fly away again with undipped beak. 

On the stone floor the juggler's heaped-up goods, 

Carpet and hoops, viol and tambourine, 

Where Annibal sits perched with brows severe, 

A serious ape whom none take seriously, 

Obliged in this fool's world to earn his nuts 

By hard buffoonery. We see them all, 

And hear their talk — the talk of Spanish men 9 

With southern intonation, vowels turned 

Caressingly between the consonants, 

Persuasive, willing, with such intervals 

As music borrows from the wooing birds, 

That plead with subtly curving, sweet descent — ■ 

And yet can quarrel, as hese Spaniards can. 

Juan {near the doorway). 
You hear the trumpet ? There's old Ramon's 

blast. 
No bray but his can shake the air so well. 
lie takes his trumpeting as solemnly 
As angel charged to wake the dead ; thinks war 
Was made for trumpeters, and their great art 
Made solely for themselves who understand it. 
His features all have shaped themselves to blow- 
ing, 
And when his trumpet's bagged or left at home 
He seems a chattel in a broker's booth, 
A spoutless watering-can, a promise to pay 
No sum particular. O fine old Ramon ! 
The blasts get louder and the clattering hoofs ; 
They crack the ear as well as heaven's thunder 
For owls that listen blinking. There's the 
banner. 

Host {joining him : the others follow to the door) 
The Duke has finished reconnoitring, then ? 



1 8 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

We shall hear news. They say he means a 

sally — 
Would strike El Zagal's Moors as they push 

home 
Like ants with booty heavier than themselves ; 
Then, joined by other nobles with their bands. 
Lay siege to Guadix. Juan, you're a bird 
That nest within the Castle. What say you ? 

Juan. 
Nought, I say nought. 'Tis but a toilsome game 
To bet upon that feather Policy, 
And guess where after twice a hundred puffs 
'Twill catch another feather crossing it : 
Guess how the Pope will blow and how the king ; 
What force my lady's fan has ; how a cough 
Seizing the Padre's throat may raise a gust. 
And how the queen may sigh the feather down. 
Such catching at imaginary threads, 
Such spinning twisted air, is not for me. 
If I should want a game, I'll rather bet 
On racing snails, two large, slow, lingering 

snails — 
No spurring, equal weights — a chance sublime, 
Nothing to guess at, pure uncertainty. 
Here comes the Duke. They give but feeble 

shouts, 
And some look sour. 

Host. 

That spoils a fair occasion. 
Civility brings no conclusions with it, 
And cheerful Vivas make the moments glide 
Instead of grating like a rusty wheel. 

Juan. 
O they are dullards, kick because they're stung, 
And bruise a friend to show they hate a wasp^ 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 19 

Host. 
Best treat your wasp with delicate regard ; 
When the right moment comes say, ' * By yout 

leave," 
Use your heel — so ! and make an end of him. 
That's if we talked of wasps ; but our young 

Duke- 
Spain holds not a more gallant gentleman. 
Live, live, Duke Silva ! 'Tis a rare smile he has, 
But seldom seen. 

Juan. 
A true hidalgo's smile, 
That gives much favor, but beseeches none. 
His smile is sweetened by his gravity : 
It comes like dawn upon Sierra snows, 
Seeming more generous for the coldness gone ; 
Breaks from the calm — a sudden opening flower 
On dark deep waters : now a chalice shut, 
A mystic shrine, the next a full-rayed star, 
Thrilling, pulse-quickening as a living word. 
I'll make a song of that. 

Host. 

Prithee, not now. 
You'll fall to staring like a wooden saint, 
And wag your head as it were set on wires. 
Here's fresh sherbet. Sit, be good company. 
( To Blasco) You are a stranger, sir, and cannot 

know 
How our Duke's nature suits his princely frame. 

Blasco. 
Nay, but I marked his spurs — chased cunningly i 
A duke should know good gold and silver plate ; 
Then he will know the quality of mine. 
I've ware for tables and for altars too, 
Our Lady in all sizes, crosses, bells : 



20 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

He'll need such weapons full as much as swords 

If he would capture any Moorish town. 

For, let me tell you, when a mosque is cleansed ... 

Juan. 
The demons fly so thick from sound of bells 
And smell of incense, you may see the air 
Streaked with them as with smoke. Why, they 

are spirits : 
You may well think how crowded they must be 
To make a sort of haze. 

Blasco. 

I knew not that. 
Still they're of smoky nature, demons are ; 
And since you say so — well, it proves the more 
The need of bells and censers. Ay, your Duke 
Sat well : a true hidalgo. I can judge — 
Of harness specially. I saw the camp, 
The royal camp at Velez Malaga. 
'Twas like the court of heaven — such liveries ! 
And torches carried by the score at night 
Before the nobles. Sirs, I made a dish 
To set an emerald in would fit a crown, 
For Don Alonzo, lord of Aguilar. 
Your Duke's no whit behind him in his mien 
Or harness either. But you seem to say 
The people love him not. 

Host. 
They've nought against him 
But certain winds will make men's temper bad. 
When the Solano blows hot venomed breath, 
It acts upon men's knives : steel takes to stab 

bing 
Which else, with cooler winds, were honest steel 
Cutting but garlic. There's a wind just now 
Blows right from Seville — 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 2 I 

BLASCO. 

Ay, you mean the wind . . . 
Yes, yes, a wind that's rather hot . . . 

Host. 

With fagots. 

Juan. 
A wind that suits not with our townsmen's blood. 
Abram, 'tis said, objected to be scorched, 
And, as the learned Arabs vouch, he gave 
The antipathy in full to Ishmael. 
'Tis true, these patriarchs had their oddities. 

Blasco. 
Their oddities ? I'm of their mind, I know. 
Though, as to Abraham and Ishmael, 
I'm an old Christian, and owe nought to them 
Or any Jew among them. But I know 
We made a stir in Saragossa — we : 
The men of Aragon ring hard — true metal. 
Sirs, I'm no friend to heresy, but then 
A Christian's money is not safe. As how ? 
A lapsing Jew or any heretic 
May owe me twenty ounces : suddenly 
He's prisoned, suffers penalties — 'tis well : 
If men will not believe, 'tis good to make them, 
But let the penalties fall on them alone. 
The Jew is stripped, his goods are confiscate ; 
Now, where, I pray you, go my twenty ounces ? 
God knows, and perhaps the King may, but not I. 
And more, my son may lose his young wife's 

dower 
Because 'twas promised since her father's soul 
Fell to wrong thinking. How was I to know ? 
I could but use my sense and cross myself. 
Christian is Christian — I give in — but still 
Taxing is taxing, though you call it holy. 



2 2 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

We Saragossans liked not this new tax 
They call the— nonsense, I'm from Aragon \ 
I speak too bluntly. But for Holy Church, 
No man believes more. 

Host. 

Nay, sir, never fear. 
Good Master Roldan here is no delator. 

Roldan (starting from a reverie). 
You speak to me, sirs ? I perform to-night — 
The Placa Santiago. Twenty tricks, 
All different. I dance, too. And the boy 
Sings like a bird. I crave your patronage. 

Blasco. 
Faith, you shall have it, sir. In travelling 
I take a little freedom, and am gay. 
You marked not what I said just now ? 

Roldan. 

I? no. 
I pray your pardon. I've a twinging knee, 
That makes it hard to listen. You were sayings 

Blasco. 
Nay, it was nought. (Aside to Host) Is it his 
deepness ? 

Host. 

No. 
He's deep in nothing but his poverty. 

Blasco. 
But 'twas his poverty that made me think . . • 

Host. 
His piety might wish to keep the feasts 
As well as fasts. No fear ; he hears not. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 23 

Blasco. 

Good. 
I speak my mind about the penalties, 
But, look you, I'm against assassination. 
You know my meaning — Master Arbues, 
The grand Inquisitor in Aragon. 
I knew nought — paid no copper toward the deed. 
But I was there, at prayers, within the church. 
How could I help it ? Why, the saints were there , 
And looked straight on above the altars. I . . . 

Juan. 
Looked carefully another way. 

Blasco. 

Why, at my beads. 
'Twas after midnight, and the canons all 
Were chanting matins. I was not in church 
To gape and stare. I saw the martyr kneel : 
I never liked the look of him alive — 
He was no martyr then. I thought he made 
An ugly shadow as he crept athwart 
The bands of light, then passed within the gloom 
By the broad pillar. 'Twas in our great Seo, 
At Saragossa. The pillars tower so large 
You cross yourself to see them, lest white Death 
Should hide behind their dark. And so it was. 
I looked away again and told my beads 
Unthinkingly ; but still a man has ears ; 
And right across the chanting came a sound 
As if a tree had crashed above the roar 
Of some great torrent. So it seemed to me ; 
For when you listen long and shut your eyes 
Small sounds get thunderous. He had a shell 
Like any lobster : a good iron suit 
From top to toe beneath the innocent serge. 
That made the tell-tale sound. But then came 
shrieks. 



24 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

The chanting stopped and turned to rushing feet, 

And in the midst lay Master Arbues, 

Felled like an ox. 'Twas wicked butchery. 

Some honest men had hoped it would have scared 

The Inquisition out of Aragon. 

'Twas money thrown away — I would say, crime — - 

Clean thrown away. 

Host. 
That was a pity now. 
Next to a missing thrust, what irks me most 
Is a neat well-aimed stroke that kills your man, 
Yet ends in mischief — as in Aragon. 
It was a lesson to our people here. 
Else there's a monk within our city walls, 
A holy, high-born, stern Dominican, 
They might have made the great mistake to kill. 

Blasco. 
What ! is he ? . . . 

Host. 

Yes ; a Master Arbues 
Of finer quality. The Prior here 
And uncle to our Duke. 

Blasco. 

He will want plate : 
A holy pillar or a crucifix. 
But, did you say, he was like Arbues ? 

Juan. 
As a black eagle with gold beak and claws 
Is like a raven. Even in his cowl, 
Covered from head to foot, the Prior is known 
From all the black herd round. When he un- 
covers 
And stands white-frocked, with ivory face, his 
eyes 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 25 

Black-gleaming, black his coronal of hair 
Like shredded jasper, he seems less a man 
With struggling aims, than pure incarnate Will, 
Fit to subdue rebellious nations, nay, 
That human flesh he breathes in, charged with 

passion 
Which quivers in his nostril and his lip, 
But disciplined by long in-dwelling will 
To silent labor in the yoke of law. 
A truce to thy comparisons, Lorenzo ! 
Thine is no subtle nose for difference ; 
'Tis dulled by feigning and civility. 

Host. 
Pooh, thou'rt a poet, crazed with finding words 
May stick to things and seem like qualities. 
No pebble is a pebble in thy hands : 
'Tis a moon out of work, a barren egg, 
Or twenty things that no man sees but thee. 
Our Father Isidor's — a living saint, 
And that is heresy, some townsmen think : 
Saints should be dead, according to the Church 
My mind is this : the Father is so holy 
'Twere sin to wish his soul detained from bliss. 
Easy translation to the realms above, 
The shortest journey to the seventh heaven, 
Is what I'd never grudge him. 

Blasco. 

Piously said. 
Look you, I'm dutiful, obey the Church 
When there's no help for it : I mean to say, 
When Pope and Bishop and all customers 
Order alike. But there be bishops now, 
And were aforetime, who have held it wrong, 
This hurry to convert the Jews. As how ? 
Your Jew pays tribute to the bishop, say. 



26 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

That's good, and must please God, to see the 

Church 
Maintained in ways that ease the Christian's 

purse. 
Convert the Jew, and where's the tribute, pray? 
He lapses, too : 'tis slippery work, conversion : 
And then the holy taxing carries off 
His money at one sweep. No tribute more ! 
He's penitent or burnt, and there's an end. 
Now guess which pleases God . . . 

Juan. 

Whether he likes 
A well-burnt Jew or well-fed bishop best. 

[While Juan put this problem theologic 
Entered, with resonant step, another guest — 
A soldier : all his keenness in his sword, 
His eloquence in scars upon his cheek, 
His virtue in much slaying of the Moor : 
With brow well-creased in horizontal folds 
To save the space, as having nought to do : 
Lips prone to whistle whisperingly — no tunc, 
But trotting rhythm : meditative eyes, 
Most often fixed upon his legs and spurs : 
Styled Captain Lopez.] 

Lopez. 

At your service, sirs. 

Juan. 
Ha, Lopez ? Why, thou hast a face full-charged 
As any herald's. What news of the wars ? 

Lopez. 
Such news as is most bitter on my tongue. 

Juan. 
Then spit it forth. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 27 

Host. 
Sit, Captain : here's a cup, 
Fresh-filled. What news ? 

Lopez. 
'Tis bad. We make no sally : 
We sit still here and wait whate'er the Moor 
vShall please to do. 

Host. 
Some townsmen will be glad. 

Lopez. 
Glad, will they be ? But I'm not glad, not I, 
Nor any Spanish soldier of clean blood. 
But the Duke's wisdom is to wait a siege 
Instead of laying one. Therefore — meantime — 
He will be married straightway. 

Host. 

Ha, ha, ha ! 
Thy speech is like an hourglass ; turn it down 
The other way, 'twill stand as well, and say 
The Duke will wed, therefore he waits a siege. 
But what say Don Diego and the Prior ? 
The holy uncle and the fiery Don ? 

Lopez. 

O there be sayings running all abroad 

As thick as nuts o'erturned. No man need lack. 

Some say, 'twas letters changed the Duke's in- 
tent : 

From Malaga, says Bias. From Rome, says 
Quintin. 

From spies at Guadix, says Sebastian. 

Some say, 'tis all a pretext — say, the Duke 

Is but a lapdog hanging on a skirt, 

Turning his eyeballs upward like a monk : 



28 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

'Twas Don Diego said that — so says Bias ; 
Last week, he said . . . 

Juan. 

O do without the * ' said ! w 
Open thy mouth and pause in lieu of it. 
I had as lief be pelted with a pea 
Irregularly in the self-same spot 
As hear such iteration without rule, 
Such torture of uncertain certainty. 

Lopez. 
Santiago ! Juan, thou art hard to please. 
I speak not for my own delighting, I. 
I can be silent, I. 

Blasco. 

Nay, sir, speak on ! 
I like your matter well. I deal in plate. 
This wedding touches me. Who is the bride ? 

Lopez. 
One that some say the Duke does ill to wed. 
One that his mother reared — God rest her 

soul ! — 
Duchess Diana — she who died last year. 
A bird picked up away from any nest. 
Her name — the Duchess gave it — is Fedalma. 
No harm in that. But the Duke stoops, they 

say, 
In wedding her. And that's the simple truth. 

Juan. 
Thy simple truth is but a false opinio?! : 
The simple truth of asses who believe 
Their thistle is the very best of food. 
Fie, Lopez, thou a Spaniard with a sword 
Dreamest a Spanish noble ever stoops 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 29 

By doing honor to the maid he loves ! 
He stoops alone when he dishonors her. 

Lopez. 
Nay, I said nought against her. 
Juan. 

Better not. 
Else I would challenge thee to fight with wits, 
And spear thee through and through ere thou 

couldst draw 
The bluntest word. Yes, yes, consult thy spurs : 
Spurs are a sign of knighthood, and should tell 

thee 
That knightly love is blent with reverence 
As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue. 
Don Silva's heart beats to a loyal tune : 
He wills no highest-born Castilian dame, 
Betrothed to highest noble, should be held 
More sacred than Fedalma. He enshrines 
Her virgin image for the general awe 
And for his own — will guard her from the world, 
Nay, his profaner self, lest he should lose 
The place of his religion. He does well. 
Nought can come closer to the poet's strain. 

Host. 
Or farther from his practice, Juan, eh ? 
If thou'rt a sample ? 

Juan. 

Wrong there, my Lorenzo ! 
Touching Fedalma the poor poet plays 
A finer part even than the noble Duke. 

Lopez. 
By making ditties, singing with round mouth 
Likest a crowing cock ? Thou meanest that ? 



30 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Juan. 
Lopez, take physic, thou art getting- ill, 
Growing descriptive ; 'tis unnatural. 
I mean, Don Silva's love expects reward, 
Kneels with a heaven to come ; but the poor poet 
Worships without reward, nor hopes to find 
A heaven save in his worship. He adores 
The sweetest woman for her sweetness' sake, 
Joys in the love that was not born for him, 
Because 'tis lovingness, as beggars joy, 
Warming their naked limbs on wayside walls, 
To hear a tale of princes and their glory. 
There's a poor poet (poor, I mean, in coin) 
Worships Fedalma with so true a love 
That if her silken robe were changed for rags. 
And she were driven out to stony wilds 
Barefoot, a scorned w T anderer, he would kiss 
Her ragged garment's edge, and only ask 
For leave to be her slave. Digest that, friend, 
Or let it lie upon thee as a weight 
To check light thinking of Fedalma. 

Lopez. 

I? 
I think no harm of her ; I thank the saints 
I wear a sword and peddle not in thinking. 
'Tis Father Marcos says she'll not confess 
And loves not holy water ; says her blood 
Is infidel ; says the Duke's wedding her 
Is union of light with darkness. 

Juan. 

Tush! 

[Now Juan — who by snatches touched his lute 
With soft arpeggio, like a whispered dream 
Of sleeping music, while he spoke of love — 
In jesting anger at the soldier's talk 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



3* 



Thrummed loud and fast, then faster and more 

loud, 
Till, as he answered t4 Tush ! " he struck a chord 
Sudden as whip-crack close by Lopez' ear. 
Mine host and Blasco smiled, the mastiff barked, 
Roldan looked up and Annibal looked down, 
Cautiously neutral in so new a case ; 
The boy raised longing, listening eyes that seemed 
An exiled spirit's waiting in strained hope 
Of voices coming from the distant land. 
But Lopez bore the assault like any rock : 
TJiat was not what he drew his sword at — he ! 
He spoke with neck erect.] 

Lopez. 

If that's a hint 
The company should ask thee for a song. 
Sing, then ! 

Host. 

Ay, Juan, sing, and jar no more. 
Something brand new. Thou'rt wont to make 

my ear 
A test of novelties. Hast thou aught fresh ? 

Juan. 

As fresh as rain-drops. Here's a Cancion 
Springs like a tiny mushroom delicate 
Out of the priest's foul scandal of Fedalma. 

[He preluded with querying intervals, 
Rising, then falling just a semitone, 
In minor cadence — sound with poised wing 
Hovering and quivering toward the needed fall. 
Then in a voice that shook the willing air 
With masculine vibration sang this song. 



32 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Should I long that dark were fair? 

Say, O song ! 

Lacks my love aught, that I should long? 

Dark the night, with breath all flowers, 
And tender broken voice that Jills 
With ravishment the listening hours : 
Whisperings, wooings, 
Liquid ripples and soft ring-dove cooings 
In low-toned rhythm that love's aching stilh 
Dark the night, 
Yet is she bright, 

For in her dark she brings the mystic star, 
Trembling yet strong, as is the voice of love, 
From some unknown afar. 
O radiant Dark ! O darkly-fostered ray I 
Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day. 

"While Juan sang, all round the tavern court 

Gathered a constellation of black eyes. 

Fat Lola leaned upon the balcony 

With arms that might have pillowed Hercules 

(Who built, 'tis known, the mightiest Spanish 

towns) ; 
Thin Alda's face, sad as a wasted passion, 
Leaned o'er the nodding baby's ; 'twixt the rails 
The little Pepe showed his two black beads, 
His flat-ringed hair and small Semitic nose, 
Complete and tiny as a new-born minnow ; 
Patting his head and holding in her arms 
The baby senior, stood Lorenzo's wife 
All negligent, her kerchief discomposed 
By little clutches, woman's coquetry 
Quite turned to mother's cares and sweet content. 
These on the balcony, while at the door 
Gazed the lank boys and lazy-shouldered men. 
'Tis likely too the rats and insects peeped, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



33 



Being southern Spanish ready for a lounge. 

The singer smiled, as doubtless Orpheus smiled, 

To see the animals both great and small, 

The mountainous elephant and scampering mouse, 

Held by the ears in decent audience ; 

Then, when mine host desired the strain once 

more, 
He fell to preluding with rhythmic change 
Of notes recurrent, soft as pattering drops 
That fall from off the eaves in faery dance 
When clouds are breaking ; till at measured 

pause 
He struck with strength, in rare responsive 
chords.] 

Host. 
Come, then, a gayer ballad, if thou wilt : 
I quarrel not with change. What say you, Cap- 
tain? 

Lopez. 
All's one to me. I note no change of tune, 
Not I, save in the ring of horses' hoofs, 
Or in the drums and trumpets when they call 
To action or retreat. I ne'er could see 
The good of singing. 

Blasco. 
Why, it passes time — 
Saves you from getting over-wise : that's good. 
For, look you, fools are merry here below, 
Yet they will go to heaven all the same, 
Having the sacraments ; and, look you, heaven 
Is a long holiday, and solid men, 
Used to much business, might be ill at ease 
Not liking play. And so, in travelling, 
I shape myself betimes to idleness 
And take fools' pleasures . . . 



34 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Host. 

Hark, the song begins ' 
Juan {sings). 
Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness ■, 

Lithe as panther forest-roaming. 

Long-armed naiad, when she dances, 

On a stream of ether floating — 

Bright, blight Fedalma ! 

Form all curves like softness drifted, 
Wave-kissed marble roundly dimpling, 

Far-off music slowly winged, 
Gently rising, gently sinking — 

Bright, O bright Fedalma ! 

Pure as rain-tear on a rose-leaf, 

Cloud high-born in noonday spotless, 

Sudden perfect as the dew-bead, 
Gem of earth and sky begotten — 

Bright, O bright Fedalma ! 

Beauty has no mortal father, 
Holy light her form engendered 

Out of tremor, yearning, gladness, 
Presage sweet and joy remembered — 
Child of Light, Fedalma ! 

Blasco. 
Faith, a good song, sung to a stirring tune. 
I like the words returning in a round ; 
It gives a sort of sense. Another such ! 

Roldan {rising). 
Sirs, you will hear my boy. 'Tis very hard 
When gentles sing for nought to all the town. 
How can a poor man live ? And now 'tis time 
I go to the Placa — who will give me pence 
When he can hear hidalgos and give nought ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 35 

Juan. 
True, friend. Be pacified. I'll sing no more. 
Go thou, and we will follow. Never fear. 
My voice is common as the ivy-leaves, 
Plucked in all seasons — bears no price ; thy boy's 
Is like the almond blossoms. Ah, he's lame ! 

Host. 
Load him not heavily. Here, Pedro ! help. 
Go with them to the Placa, take the hoops. 
The sights will pay thee. 

Blasco. 

I'll be there anon, 
And set the fashion with a good white coin. 
But let us see as well as hear. 

Host. 

Ay, prithee. 
Some tricks, a dance. 

Blasco. 

Yes, 'tis more rational. 

Roldan {turning round with the bundle and 
monkey on his shoulders). 
You shall see all, sirs. There's no man in Spain 
Knows his art better. I've a twinging knee 
Oft hinders dancing, and the boy is lame. 
But no man's monkey has more tricks than mine, 

[At this high praise the gloomy Annibal, 
Mournful professor of high drollery, 
Seemed to look gloomier, and the little troop 
Went slowly out, escorted from the door 
By all the idlers. From the balcony 
Slowly subsided the black radiance 
Of agate eyes, and broke in chattering sounds, 



36 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Coaxings and trampings, and the small hoarse 

squeak 
Of Pepe's reed. And our group talked again.] 

Host. 
I'll get this juggler, if he quits him well, 
An audience here as choice as can be lured. 
For me, when a poor devil does his best, 
'Tis my delight to soothe his soul with praise. 
What though the best be bad ? remains the good 
Of throwing food to a lean hungry dog. 
I'd give up the best jugglery in life 
To see a miserable juggler pleased. 
But that's my humor. Crowds are malcontent 
And cruel as the Holy .... Shall we go ? 
All of us now together ? 

Lopez. 

Well, not I. 
I may be there anon, but first I go 
To the lower prison. There is strict command 
That all our gypsy prisoners shall to-night 
Be lodged within the fort. They've forged 

enough 
Of balls and bullets — used up all the metal. 
At morn to-morrow they must carry stones 
Up the south tower. 'Tis a fine stalwart band, 
Fit for the hardest tasks. Some say, the queen 
Would have the Gypsies banished with the Jews. 
Some say, 'twere better harness them for work. 
They'd feed on any filth and save the Spaniard. 
Some say — but I must go. 'Twill soon be time 
To head the escort. We shall meet again. 

Blasco. 
Go, sir, with God (exit Lopez). A very proper 

man, 
And soldierlv. But, for this banishment 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 37 

Some men are hot on, it ill pleases me. 
The Jews, now (sirs, if any Christian here 
Had Jews for ancestors, I blame him not ; 
We cannot all be Goths of Aragon) — 
Jews are not fit for heaven, but on earth 
They are most useful. 'Tis the same with mulet. 
Horses, or oxen, or with any pig 
Except Saint Anthony's. They are useful here 
(The Jews, I mean) though they may go to hell. 
And, look you, useful sins — why Providence 
Sends Jews to do 'em. saving Christian souls. 
The very Gypsies, curbed and harnessed well, 
Would make draught cattle, feed on vermin too. 
Cost less than grazing brutes, and turn bad food 
To handsome carcasses ; sweat at the forge 
For little wages, and well drilled and flogged 
Might work like slaves, some Spaniards looking 

on. 
I deal in plate, and am no priest to say 
What God may mean, save when he means plain 

sense ; 
But when he sent the Gypsies wandering 
In punishment because they sheltered not 
Our Lady and Saint Joseph (and no doubt 
Stole the small ass they fled with into Egypt), 
Why send them here ? 'Tis plain he saw the use 
They'd be to Spaniards. Shall we banish them, 
And tell God we know better ? 'Tis a sin. 
They talk of vermin ; but, sirs, vermin large 
Were made to eat the small, or else to eat 
The noxious rubbish, and picked Gypsy men 
Might serve in war to climb, be killed, and fall 
To make an easy ladder. Once I saw 
A Gypsy sorcerer, at a spring and grasp 
Kill one who came to seize him : talk of strength ! 
Nay, swiftness too, for while we crossed ourselves 
He vanished like — say, like . . . 



IT? 



-8 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Juan. 

A swift black snake, 
Or like a living arrow fledged with will. 

Blasco. 

Why, did you see him, pray r 

Juan. 

Not then, but now, 
As painters see the many in the one. 
We have a Gypsy in Bedmar whose frame 
Nature compacted with such fine selection, 
'Twould yield a dozen types : all Spanish knights, 
From him who slew Rolando at the pass 
Up to the mighty Cid ; all deities, 
Thronging Olympus in fine attitudes ; 
Or all hell's heroes whom the poet saw 
Tremble like lions, writhe like demigods. 

Host. 
Pause not yet, Juan — more hyperbole ! 
Shoot upward still and flare in meteors 
Before thou sink to earth in dull brown fact. 

Blasco. 
Nay, give me fact, high shooting suits not me. 
I never stare to look for soaring larks. 
What is this Gypsy ? 

Host. 

Chieftain of a band, 
The Moor's allies, whom full a month ago 
Our Duke surprised and brought as captives 

home. 
He needed smiths, and doubtless the brave Mooi 
Has missed some useful scouts and archers too. 
Juan's fantastic pleasure is to watch 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 39 

'These Gypsies forging, and to hold discourse 
With this great chief, whom he transforms at 

will 
To sage or warrior, and like the sun 
Plays daily at fallacious alchemy, 
Turns sand to gold and dewy spider-webs 
To myriad rainbows. Still the sand is sand, 
And still in sober shade you see the web. 
'Tis so, I'll wager, with his Gypsy chief — 
A piece of stalwart cunning, nothing more. 

Juan. 
No ! My invention had been all too poor 
To frame this Zarca as I saw him first. 
'Twas when they stripped him. In his chief- 
tain's gear, 
Amidst his men he seemed a royal barb 
Followed by wild-maned Andalusian colts. 
He had a necklace of a strange device 
In finest gold of unknown workmanship, 
But delicate as Moorish, fit to kiss 
Fedalma's neck, and play in shadows there. 
He wore fine mail, a rich- wrought sword and 

belt, 
And on his surcoat black a broidered torch, 
A pine-branch flaming, grasped by two dark 

hands. 
But when they stripped him of his ornaments 
It was the the baubles lost their grace, not he. 
His eyes, his mouth, his nostril, all inspired 
With scorn that mastered utterance of scorn, 
With power to check all rage until it turned 
To ordered force, unleashed on chosen prey — 
It seemed the soul within him made his limbs 
And made them grand. The baubles were well 

gone. 
He stood the more a king, when bared to man. 



40 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Blasco. 
Maybe. But nakedness is bad for trade. 
And is not decent. Well-wrought metal, sir, 
Is not a bauble. Had you seen the camp, 
The royal camp at Velez Malaga, 
Ponce de Leon and the other dukes, 
The king himself and all his thousand knights 
For bodyguard, 'twould not have left you breath 
To praise a Gypsy thus. A man's a man ; 
But when you see a king, you see the work 
Of many thousand men. King Ferdinand 
Bears a fine presence, and hath proper limbs ; 
But what though he were shrunken as a relic ? 
You'd see the gold and gems that cased him o'er 5 
And all the pages round him in brocade, 
And all the lords, themselves a sort of kings, 
Doing him reverence. That strikes an awe 
Into a common man — especially 
A judge of plate. 

Host. 

Faith, very wisely said. 
Purge thy speech, Juan. It is over-full 
Of this same Gypsy. Praise the Catholic King. 
And come now, let us see the juggler's skill. 



The Placet Santiago. 
'Tis daylight still, but now the golden cross 
Uplifted by the angel on the dome 
Stands rayless in calm color clear-defined 
Against the northern blue ; from turrets high 
The flitting; splendor sinks with folded wing 
Dark-hid till morning, and the battlements 
Wear soft relenting whiteness mellowed o'er 
By summers generous and winters bland. 
Now in the east the distance casts its veil 
And gazes with a deepening earnestness. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 41 

The old rain-fretted mountains in their robes 
Of shadow-broken gray ; the rounded hills 
Reddened with blood of Titans, whose huge 

limbs, 
Entombed within, feed full the hardy flesh 
Of cactus green and blue broad-sworded aloes ; 
The cypress soaring black above the lines 
Of white court-walls ; the jointed sugar-canes 
Pale-golden with their feathers motionless 
In the warm quiet : — all thought-teaching form 
Utters itself in firm unshimmering hues. 
For the great rock has screened the westering 

sun 
That still on plains beyond streams vaporous 

gold 
Among the branches ; and within Bedmar 
Has come the time of sweet serenity 
When color glows unglittering, and the soul 
Of visible things shows silent happiness, 
As that of lovers trusting though apart. 
The ripe-cheeked fruits, the crimson-petal led 

flowers ; 
The winged life that pausing seems a gem 
Cunningly carven on the dark green leaf; 
The face of man with hues supremely blent 
To difference fine as of a voice 'mid sounds : — 
Each lovely light dipped thing seems to emerge 
Flushed gravely from baptismal sacrament. 
All beauteous existence rests, yet wakes, 
Lies still, yet conscious, with clear open eyes 
And gentle breath and mild suffused joy. 
'Tis day, but day that falls like melody 
Repeated on a string with graver tones- 
Tones such as linger in a long farewell. 

The Placa widens in the passive air — 
The Placa Santiago, where the church. 



42 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

A mosque converted, shows an eyeless face 
Red-checkered, faded, doing penance still — 
Bearing with Moorish arch the imaged saint, 
Apostle, baron, Spanish warrior, 
Whose charger's hoofs trample the turbaned 

dead, 
Whose banner with the Cross, the bloody sword 
Flashes athwart the Moslem's glazing eye, 
And mocks his trust in Allah who forsakes. 
Up to the church the Placa gently slopes, 
In shape most like the pious palmer's shell, 
Girdled with low white houses ; high above 
Tower the strong fortress and sharp-angled wall 
And well-flanked castle gate. From o'er the 

roofs, 
And from the shadowed patios cool, there 

spreads 
The breath of flowers and aromatic leaves 
Soothing the sense with bliss indefinite — 
A baseless hope, a glad presentiment, 
That curves the lip more softly, fills the eye 
W 7 ith more indulgent beam. And so it soothes, 
So gently sways the pulses of the crowd 
Who make a zone about the central spot 
Chosen by Roldan for his theatre. 
Maids with arched eyebrows, delicate-pencilled, 

dark, 
Fold their round arms below the kerchief full ; 
Men shoulder little girls ; and grandames gray, 
But muscular still, hold babies on their arms ; 
While mothers keep the stout-legged boys in 

front 
Against their skirts, as old Greek pictures show 
The Glorious Mother with the Boy divine. 
Youths keep the places for themselves, and roll 
Large lazy eyes, and call recumbent dogs 
(For reasons deep below the reach of thought). 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 43 

The old men cough with purpose, wish to hint 

Wisdom within that cheapens jugglery, 

Maintain a neutral air, and knit their brows 

In observation. None are quarrelsome, 

Noisy, or very merry ; for their blood 

Moves slowly into fervor — they rejoice 

Like those dark birds that sweep with heavy 

wing, 
Cheering their mates with melancholy cries. 

But now the gilded balls begin to play 
In rhythmic numbers, ruled by practice fine 
Of eye and muscle : all the juggler's form 
Consents harmonious in swift-gliding change, 
Easily forward stretched or backward bent 
With lightest step and movement circular 
Round a fixed point : 'tis not the old Roldan 

now, 
The dull, hard, weary, miserable man, 
The soul all parched to languid appetite 
And memory of desire : 'tis wondrous force 
That moves in combination multiform 
Toward conscious ends : 'tis Roldan glorious, 
Holding all eyes like any meteor, 
King of the moment save when Annibal 
Divides the scene and plays the comic part, 
Gazing with blinking glances up and down, 
Dancing and throwing nought and catching it, 
With mimicry as merry as the tasks 
Of penance-working shades in Tartarus. 

Pablo stands passive, and a space apart, 
Holding a viol, waiting for command. 
Music must not be wasted, but must rise 
As needed climax ; and the audience 
Is growing with late comers. Juan now, 
And the familiar Host, with Blasco broad f 



44 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



Find way made gladly to the inmost round 
Studded with heads. Lorenzo knits the crowd 
Into one family by showing all 
Good- will and recognition. Juan casts 
His large and rapid measuring glance around ; 
But — with faint quivering, transient as a breath 
Shaking a flame — his eyes make sudden pause 
Where by the jutting angle of a street 
Castle-ward leading, stands a female form, 
A kerchief pale square- drooping o'er the brow, 
About her shoulders dim brown serge — in garb 
Most like a peasant woman from the vale, 
Who might have lingered after marketing 
To see the show. What thrill mysterious, 
Ray-borne from orb to orb of conscious eyes, 
The swift observing sweep of Juan's glance 
Arrests an instant, then with prompting fresh 
Diverts it lastingly ? He turns at once 
To watch the gilded balls, and nod and smile 
At little round Pepita, blondest maid 
In all Bedmar — Pepita, fair yet flecked, 
Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red 
As breasts of robins stepping on the snow - 
Who stands in front with little tapping feet, 
And baby-dimpled hands that hide inclosed 
Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets. 
But soon the gilded balls have ceased to play 
And Annibal is leaping through the hoops, 
That turn to twelve, meeting him as he flies 
In the swift circle. Shuddering he leaps, 
But with each spring flies swift and swifter still 
To loud and louder shouts, while the great hoops 
Are changed to smaller. Now the crowd is fired. 
The motion swift, the living victim urged, 
The imminent failure and repeated scape 
Hurry all pulses and intoxicate 
With subtle wine of passion many-mixt. 



rite- SPANISH GYPSY. 



45 



'Tis all about a monkey leaping hard 

Till near to gasping ; but it serves as well 

As the great circus or arena dire, 

Where these are lacking. Roldan cautiously 

Slackens the leaps and lays the hoops to rest, 

And Annibal retires with reeling brain 

And backward stagger — pity, he could not smile ! 

Now Roldan spreads his carpet, now he shows 

Strange metamorphoses : the pebble black 

Changes to whitest egg within his hand ; 

A staring rabbit, with retreating ears, 

Is swallowed by the air and vanishes ; 

He tells men's thoughts about the shaken dice, 

Their secret choosings ; makes the white beans 

pass 
With causeless act sublime from cup to cup 
Turned empty on the ground — diablerie 
That pales the girls and puzzles all the boys : 
These tricks are samples, hinting to the town 
Roldan's great mastery. He tumbles next, 
And Annibal is called to mock each feat 
With arduous comicality and save 
By rule romantic the great public mind 
(And Roldan's body) from too serious strain. 

But with the tumbling, lest the feats should fail, 
And so need veiling in a haze of sound, 
Pablo awakes the viol and the bow — 
The masculine bow that draws the woman's 

heart 
From out the strings and makes them cry, yearn, 

plead, 
Tremble, exult, with mystic union 
Of joy acute and tender suffering. 
To play the viol and discreetly mix 
Alternate with the bow's keen biting tones 



46 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

The throb responsive to the finger's touch, 
Was rarest skill that Pablo half had caught 
From an old blind and wandering Catalan ; 
The other half was rather heritage 
From treasure stored by generations past 
In winding chambers of receptive sense. 

The winged sounds exalt the thick-pressed 

crowd 
With a new pulse in common, blending all 
The gazing life into one larger soul 
With dimly widened consciousness : as waves 
In heightened movement tell of waves far off. 
And the light changes ; westward stationed 

clouds, 
The sun's ranged outposts, luminous message 

spread, 
Rousing quiescent things to doff their shade 
And show themselves as added audience. 
Now Pablo, letting fall the eager bow, 
Solicits softer murmurs from the strings, 
And now above them pours a wondrous voice 
(Such as Greek reapers heard in Sicily) 
With wounding rapture in it, like love's arrows i 
And clear upon clear air as colored gems 
Dropped in a crystal cup of water pure, 
Fall words of sadness, simple, lyrical : 
Spring comes hitlier y 

Buds the rose ; 
Roses wither, 

Sweet spring goes. 
Ojala, would she cany met 
Sumi?ier soars — 

Wide-winged day 
White light pours \ 
Flies away. 
Ojala, would he cany me I 



THE SPANISH GYPSY, 47 

Soft winds blow y 

Westward born, 
Onward go 

Toward the morn. 
Ojala, would they cany me I 

Sweet birds sing 

O'er the graves ', 
Then take wing 

O'er the waves. 
Ojala, zuould they carry me ! 

When the voice paused and left the viol's note 
To plead forsaken, 'twas as when a cloud 
Hiding the sun, makes all the leaves and flowers 
Shiver. But when with measured change the 

strings 
Had taught regret new longing, clear again, 
Welcome as hope recovered, flowed the voice. 

Warm whispering through the slender olive leaves 
Came to me a gentle sound, 
Whispering of a secret found 

In the clear sunshine y mid the goldeit sheaves : 

Said it was sleeping for me in the morn, 
Called it gladness, called it joy, 
Drew me on — " Come hither, boy" — 

To where the blue wings rested on the corn. 

I thought the gentle sound had whispered true — 
Thought the little heaven mine, 
Leaned to clutch the thing divine, 

And saw the blue wings melt within the blue. 

The long notes linger on the trembling air, 
With subtle penetration enter all 
The myriad corridors of the passionate soul, 
Message-like spread, and answering action rouse, 
Not angular jigs that warm the chilly limbs 
In hoary northern mists, but action curved 



48 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

To soft andante strains pitched plaintively. 
Vibrations sympathetic stir all limbs : 
Old men live backward in their dancing prime, 
And move in memory ; small legs and arms 
With pleasant agitation purposeless 
Go up and down like pretty fruits in gales. 
All long in common for the expressive act 
Yet wait for it ; as in the olden time 
Men waited for the bard to tell their thought. 
" The dance ! the dance ! " is shouted all around. 
Now Pablo lifts the bow, Pepita now, 
Ready as bird that sees the sprinkled corn, 
When Juan nods and smiles, puts forth her foot 
And lifts her arm to wake the castanets. 
Juan advances, too, from out the ring 
And bends to quit his lute ; for now the scene 
Is empty ; Roldan weary, gathers pence, 
Followed by Annibal with purse and stick. 
The carpet lies a colored isle untrod, 
Inviting feet : " The dance, the dance," re- 
sounds, 
The bow entreats with slow melodic strain, 
And all the air with expectation yearns. 

Sudden, with gliding motion like a flame 

That through dim vapor makes a path of glory, 

A figure lithe, all white and saffron-robed, 

Flashed right across the circle, and now stood 

With ripened arms uplift and regal head, 

Like some tall flower whose dark and intense 

heart 
Lies half within a tulip-tinted cup. 

Juan stood fixed and pale ; Pepita stepped 
Backward within the ring : the voices fell 
From shouts insistent to more passive tones 
Half meaning welcome, half astonishment. 
14 Lady Fedalma ! — will she dance for us ? " 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 49 

But she, sole swayed by impulse passionate, 

Feeling all life was music and all eyes 

The warming quickening light that music makes, 

Moved as, in dance religious, Miriam, 

When on the Red Sea shore she raised her 

voice 
And led the chorus of the people's joy ; 
Or as the Trojan maids that reverent sang 
Watching the sorrow-crowned Hecuba : 
Moved in slow curves voluminous, gradual, 
Feeling and action flowing into one, 
In Eden's natural taintless marriage-bond ; 
Ardently modest, sensuously pure, 
With young delight that wonders at itself 
And throbs as innocent as opening flowers, 
Knowing not comment — soilless, beautiful. 
The spirit in her gravely glowing face 
With sweet community informs her limbs, 
Filling their fine gradation with the breath 
Of virgin majesty ; as full vowelled words 
Are new impregnate with the master's thought. 
Even the chance-strayed delicate tendrils black, 
That backward 'scape from out her wreathing 

hair — 
Even the pliant folds that cling transverse 
When with obliquely soaring bend altern 
She seems a goddess quitting earth again — 
Gather expression — a soft undertone 
And resonance exquisite from the grand chord 
Of her harmoniously bodied soul. 

At first a reverential silence guards 
The eager senses of the gazing crowd : 
They hold their breath, and live by seeing her. 
But soon the admiring tension finds relief — 
Sighs of delight, applausive murmurs low, 
And stirrings gentle as of eared corn 



5<D THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Or seed-bent grasses, when the ocean's breath 

Spreads landward. Even Juan is impelled 

By the swift-travelling movement : fear and 

doubt 
Give way before the hurrying energy ; 
He takes his lute and strikes in fellowship, 
Filling more full the rill of melody 
Raised ever and anon to clearest flood 
By Pablo's voice, that dies away too soon, 
Like the sweet blackbird's fragmentary chant, 
Yet wakes again, with varying rise and fall, 
In songs that seem emergent memories 
Prompting brief utterance — little cancions 
And villancicos, Andalusia-born. 

Pablo (sings). 
It was in the prime 
Of the sweet Spring-time. 
In the linnefs throat 
Trembled the love-note. 
And the love-stiwed air 
Thrilled the blossoms there. 
Little shadows danced 

Each a tiny elf, 
Happy in large light 
And the thinnest self. 

It was but a minute 

In a far-off Spring, 

But each gentle thing, 
Szveetly-wooing linnet, 
Soft-thrilled hawthorn tree> 

Happy shadowy elf 

With the thinnest self, 
Live still on in me. 
O the sweet, sweet prime 
Of the past Spring-time ! 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



51 



And still the light is changing : high above 
Float soft pink clouds ; others with deeper flush 
Stretch like flamingoes bending toward the 

south. 
Comes a more solemn brilliance o'er the sky, 
A meaning more intense upon the air — 
The inspiration of the dying day. 
And Juan now, when Pablo's notes subside, 
Soothes the regretful ear, and breaks the pause 
With masculine voice in deep antiphony. 

Juan (sings). 

Day is dying ! Float, O song, 

Down the westward river, 
Requiem chanting to the Day — 

Day, the mighty Giver. 

Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds ; 

Melted rubies sending 
Through the river and the sky, 

Earth and heaven blending ; 

All the long-drawn earthy banks 

Up to cloud-land lifting : 
Slow between them drifts the swan,, 

' Twixt two heavens drifting. 

Wings half open, like a flow' r 

Inly deeper flushing, 
Neck and breast as virgin spure-^ 
Virgin proudly blushing. 

Day is dying ! Float, O swan, 

Down the ruby river ; 
Follow, song, in requiem 

To the mighty Giver, 



52 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

The exquisite hour, the ardor of the crowd, 
The strains more plenteous, and the gathering 

might 
Of action passionate where no effort is, 
But self's poor gates open to rushing power 
That blends the inward ebb and outward vast — 
All gathering influences culminate 
And urge Fedalma. Earth and heaven seem one, 
Life a glad trembling on the outer edge 
Of unknown rapture. Swifter now she moves, 
Filling the measure with a double beat 
And widening circle ; now she seems to glow 
With more declared presence, glorified. 
Circling, she lightly bends and lifts on high 
The multitudinous- sounding tambourine, 
And makes it ring and boom, then lifts it higher, 
Stretching her left arm beauteous ; now the 

crowd 
Exultant shouts, forgetting poverty 
In the rich moment of possessing her. 

But sudden, at one point, the exultant throng 
Is pushed and hustled, and then thrust apart : 
Something approaches — something cuts the ring 
Of jubilant idlers — startling as a streak 
From alien wounds across the booming flesh 
Of careless sporting childhood. 'Tis the band 
Of Gypsy prisoners. Soldiers lead the van 
And make sparse flanking guard, aloof surveyed 
By gallant Lopez, stringent in command. 
The Gypsies chained in couples, all save one, 
Walk in dark file with grand bare legs and arms 
And savage melancholy in their eyes 
That star-like gleam from out black clouds of hair ; 
Now they are full in sight, and now they stretch 
Right to the centre of the open space, 
^edalma now. with gentle wheeling sweep 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 53 

Returning, like the loveliest of the Hours 
Strayed from her sisters, truant lingering, 
Faces again the centre, swings again 
The uplifted tambourine. . . . 

When lo ! with sound 
Stupendous throbbing, solemn as a voice 
Sent by the invisible choir of all the dead, 
Tolls the great passing bell that calls to prayer 
For souls departed : at the mighty beat 
It seems the light sinks awe-struck — 'tis the note 
Of the sun's burial ; speech and action pause ; 
Religious silence and the holy sign 
Of everlasting memories (the sign 
Of death that turned to more diffusive life) 
Pass o'er the Placa. Little children gaze 
With lips apart, and feel the unknown god ; 
And the most men and women pray. Not all. 
The soldiers pray ; the Gypsies stand unmoved 
As pagan statues with proud level gaze. 
But he who wears a solitary chain 
Heading the file, has turned to face Fedalma. 
She motionless, with arm uplifted, guards 
The tambourine aloft (lest, sudden-lowered, 
Its trivial jingle mar the duteous pause), 
Reveres the general prayer, but prays not, 

stands 
With level glance meeting that Gypsy's eyes, 
That seem to her the sadness of the world 
Rebuking her, the great bell's hidden thought 
Now first unveiled — the sorrows unredeemed 
Of races outcast, scorned, and wandering. 
Why does he look at her ? why she at him ? 
As if the meeting light between their eyes 
Made permanent union ? His deep-knit brow. 
Inflated nostril, scornful lip compressed, 
Seem a dark hieroglyph of coming fate 
Written before her. Father Isidor 



54 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Had terrible eyes and was her enemy ; 
She knew it and defied him ; all her soul 
Rounded and hardened in its separateness 
When they encountered. But this prisoner — 
This Gypsy, passing, gazing casually — 
Was he her enemy too ? She stood all quelled, 
The impetuous joy that hurried in her veins 
Seemed backward rushing turned to chillest awe. 
Uneasy wonder, and a vague self-doubt. 
The minute brief stretched measureless, dream- 
filled 
By a dilated new-fraught consciousness. 

Now it was gone ; the pious murmur ceased, 
The Gypsies all moved onward at command 
And careless noises blent confusedly. 
But the ring closed again, and many ears 
Waited for Pablo's music, many eyes 
Turned toward the carpet : it lay bare and dim, 
Twilight was there — the bright Fedalma gone. 



A handsome room in the Castle. On a table a 
rich jewel-casket. 

Silva had doffed his mail and with it all 

The heavier harness of his warlike cares. 

He had not seen Fedalma ; miser-like 

He hoarded through the hour a costlier joy 

By longing oft-repressed. Now it was earned ; 

And with observance wonted he would send 

To ask admission. Spanish gentlemen 

Who wooed fair dames of noble ancestry 

Did homage with rich tunics and slashed sleeves 

And outward-surging linen's costly snow ; 

With broidered scarf transverse, and rosary 

Handsomely wrought to fit high-blooded prayer: 

So hinting in how deep respect they held 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



55 



That self they threw before their lady's feet. 

And Silva — that Fedalma's rate should stand 

No jot below the highest, that her love 

Might seem to all the royal gift it was — 

Turned every trifle in his mien and garb 

To scrupulous language, uttering to the world 

That since she loved him he went carefully, 

Bearing a thing so precious in his hand. 

A man of high-wrought strain, fastidious 

In his acceptance, dreading all delight 

That speedy dies and turns to carrion : 

His senses much exacting, deep instilled 

With keen imagination's airy needs ; — 

Like strong-limbed monsters studded o'er with 

eyes, 
Their hunger checked by overwhelming vision, 
Or that fierce lion in symbolic dream 
Snatched from the ground by wings and new- 
endowed 
With a man's thought-propelled relenting heart. 
Silva was both the lion and the man ; 
First hesitating shrank, then fiercely sprang, 
Or having sprung, turned pallid at his deed 
And loosed the prize, paying his blood for 

nought. 
A nature half -transformed, with qualities 
That oft bewrayed each other, elements 
Not blent but struggling, breeding strange effects. 
Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes. 
Haughty and generous, grave and passionate ; 
With tidal moments of devoutest awe, 
Sinking anon to farthest ebb of doubt ; 
Deliberating ever, till the sting 
Of a recurrent ardor made him rush 
Right against reasons that himself had drilled 
And marshalled painfully. A spirit framed 
Too proudly special for obedience, 



56 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Too subtly pondering for mastery : 

Born of a goddess with a mortal sire, 

Heir of flesh-fettered, weak divinity, 

Doom-gifted with long resonant consciousness 

And perilous heightening of the sentient soul. 

But look less curiously : life itself 

May not express us all, may leave the worst 

And the best too, like tunes in mechanism 

Never awaked. In various catalogues 

Objects stand variously. Silva stands 

As a young Spaniard, handsome, noble, brave, 

With titles many, high in pedigree ; 

Or, as a nature quiveringly poised 

In reach of storms, whose qualities may turn 

To murdered virtues that still walk as ghosts 

Within the shuddering soul and shriek remorse ; 

Or, as a lover .... In the screening time 

Of purple blossoms, when the petals crowd 

And softly crush like cherub cheeks in heaven, 

Who thinks of greenly withered fruit and 

worms ? 
O the warm southern spring is beauteous ! 
And in love's spring all good seems possible : 
No threats, all promise, brooklets ripple full 
And bathe the rushes, vicious crawling things 
Are pretty eggs, the sun shines graciously 
And parches not, the silent rain beats warm 
As childhood's kisses, days are young and grow, 
And earth seems in its sweet beginning time 
Fresh made for two who live in Paradise. 
Silva is in love's spring, its freshness breathed 
Within his soul along the dusty ways 
While marching homeward ; 'tis around him now 
As in a garden fenced in for delight, — 
And he may seek delight. Smiling he lifts 
A whistle from his belt, but lets it fall 
Ere it has reached his lips, jarred by the sound 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 57 

Of ushers' knocking, and a voice that craves 
Admission for the Prior of San Domingo. 

Prior (entering). 
You look perturbed, my son. I thrust myself 
Between you and some beckoning intent 
That wears a face more smiling, than my own. 

Don Silva. 
Father, enough that you are here. I wait, 
As always, your commands — nay, should have 

sought 
An early audience. 

Prior. 

To give, I trust, 
Good reasons for your change of policy ? 

Don Silva. 

Strong reasons, father. 

Prior. 

Ay, but are they good ? 
I have known reasons strong, but strongly evil. 

Don Silva. 
'Tis possible. I but deliver mine 
To your strict judgment. Late despatches sent 
With urgence by the Count of Bavien, 
No hint on my part prompting, with besides 
The testified concurrence of the king 
And our Grand Master, have made peremptory 
The course which else had been but rational. 
Without the forces furnished by allies 
The siege of Guadix would be madness. More, 
El Zagal has his eyes upon Bedmar : 
Let him attempt it : in three weeks from hence 
The Master and the Lord of Aguilar 
Will bring their forces. We shall catch the Moors. 



58 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

The last gleaned clusters of their bravest men, 
As in a trap. You have my reasons, father. 

Prior. 
And they sound well. But free-tongued rumor 

adds 
A pregnant supplement — in substance this : 
That inclination snatches arguments 
To make indulgence seem judicious choice ; 
That you, commanding in God's Holy War, 
Lift prayers to Satan to retard the fight 
And give you time for feasting — wait a siege, 
Call daring enterprise impossible, 
Because you'd marry ! You, a Spanish duke, 
Christ's general, would marry like a clown, 
Who, selling fodder dearer for the war, 
Is all the merrier ; nay, like the brutes, 
Who know no awe to check their appetite, 
Coupling 'mid heaps of slain, while still in front 
The battle rages. 

Don Silva. 

Rumor on your lips 
Is eloquent, father. 

Prior. 

Is she true ? 

Don Silva. 

Perhaps. 
I seek to justify my public acts 
And not my private joy. Before the world 
Enough if I am faithful in command, 
Betray not by my deeds, swerve from no task 
My knightly vows constrain me to : herein 
I ask all men to test me. 

Prior. 

Knightly vows ? 
Is it by their constraint that you must marry? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 59 

Don Silva. 

Marriage is not a breach of them. I use 
A sanctioned liberty .... your pardon, father. 
I need not teach you what the Church decrees. 
But facts may weaken texts, and so dry up 
The fount of eloquence. The Church relaxed 
Our Order's rule before I took the vows. 

Prior. 
Ignoble liberty ! you snatch your rule 
From what God tolerates, not what he loves ? — 
Inquire what lowest offering may suffice, 
Cheapen it meanly to an obolus, 
Buy, and then count the coin left in your purse 
For your debauch ? — Measure obedience 
By scantest powers of brethren whose frail flesh 
Our Holy Church indulges ? — Ask great Law, 
The rightful Sovereign of the human soul , 
For what it pardons, not what it commands ? 

fallen knighthood, penitent of high vows, 
Asking a charter to degrade itself ! 

Such poor apology of rules relaxed 
Blunts not suspicion of that doubleness 
Your enemies tax you with. 

Don Silva. 

Oh, for the rest, 
Conscience is harder than our enemies, 
Knows more, accuses with more nicety, 
Nor needs to question Rumor if we fall 
Below the perfect model of our thought. 

1 fear no outward arbiter. — You smile ? 

Prior. 
Ay, at the contrast 'twixt your portraiture 
And the true image of your conscience, shown 
As now I see it in your acts. I see 
A drunken sentinel who gives alarm 



60 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

At his own shadow, but when scalers snatch 
His weapon from his hand smiles idiot-like 
At games he's dreaming of. 

Don Silva. 

A parable ! 
The husk is rough — holds something bitter f 
doubtless. 

Prior. 
Oh, the husk gapes with meaning over-ripe. 
You boast a conscience that controls your deeds, 
Watches your knightly armor, guards your rank 
From stain of treachery — you, helpless slave, 
Whose will lies nerveless in the clutch of lust — 
Of blind mad passion — passion itself most help- 
less, 
Storm-driven, like the monsters of the sea. 
O famous conscience ! 

Don Silva. 

Pause there ! Leave unsaid 
Aught that will match that text. More were too 

much, 
Even from holy lips. I own no love 
But such as guards my honor, since it guards 
Hers whom I love ! I suffer no foul words 
To stain the gift I lay before her feet ; 
And, being hers, my honor is more safe. 

Prior. 
Versemakers' talk ! fit for a world of rhymes, 
Where facts are feigned to tickle idle ears, 
Where good and evil play at tournament 
And end in amity — a world of lies — 
A carnival of words where every year 
Stale falsehoods serve fresh men. Your honor 
safe? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 6 1 

What honor has a man with double bonds ? 
Honor is shifting as the shadows are 
To souls that turn their passions into laws. 
A Christian knight who weds an infidel .... 

Don Silva (fiercely). 
An infidel ! 

Prior. 
May one day spurn the Cross, 
And call that honor ! — one day find his sword 
Stained with his brother's blood, and call that 

honor ! 
Apostates' honor? — harlots' chastity ! 
Renegades' faithfulness? — Iscariot's ! 

Don Silva. 
Strong words and burning ; but they scorch not 

me. 
Fedalma is a daughter of the Church — 
Has been baptized and nurtured in the faith. 

Prior. 
Ay, as a thousand Jewesses, who yet 
Are brides of Satan in a robe of flames. 

Don Silva. 
Fedalma is no Jewess, bears no marks 
That tell of Hebrew blood. 

Prior. 

She bears the marks 
Of races unbaptized, that never bowed 
Before the holy signs, were never moved 
By stirrings of the sacramental gifts. 

Don Silva (scornfully). 
Holy accusers practise palmistry, 
And, other witness lacking, read the skin. 



62 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Prior. 
I read a record deeper than the skin. 
What ! Shall the trick of nostrils and of lips 
Descend through generations, and the soul 
That moves within our frame like God in worlds- 
Convulsing, urging, melting, withering — 
Imprint no record, leave no documents, 
Of her great history ? Shall men bequeath 
The fancies of their palate to their sons, 
And shall the shudder of restraining awe, 
The slow-wept tears of contrite memory, 
Faith's prayerful labor, and the food divine 
Of fasts ecstatic — shall these pass away 
Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly ? 
Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain, 
And god-enshrining symbols leave no trace 
Of tremors reverent ? — That maiden's blood 
Is as unchristian as the leopard's. 

Don Silva. 

Say, 
Unchristian as the Blessed Virgin's blood 
Before the angel spoke the word, "All hail !" 

Prior {smiling bitterly). 
Said I not truly ? See, your passion weaves 
Already blasphemies ! 

Don Silva. 

'Tis you provoke them. 
Prior. 
I strive, as still the Holy Spirit strives, 
To move the will perverse. But, failing this, 
God commands other means to save our blood, 
To save Castilian glory — nay, to save 
The name of Christ from blot of traitorous 
deeds. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 6$ 

Don Silva. 
Of traitorous deeds ! Age, kindred, and your 

cowl, 
Give an ignoble license to your tongue. 
As for your threats, fulfil them at your peril. 
'Tis you, not I, will gibbet our great name 
To rot in infamy. If I am strong 
In patience now, trust me, I can be strong 
Then in defiance. 

Prior. 

Miserable man ! 
Your strength will turn to anguish, like the 

strength 
Of fallen angels. Can you change your blood ? 
You are a Christian, with the Christian awe 
In every vein. A Spanish noble, born 
To serve your people and your people's faith. 
Strong, are you ? Turn your back upon the 

Cross — 
Its shadow is before you. Leave your place : 
Quit the great ranks of knighthood : you will walk 
Forever with a tortured double self, 
A self that will be hungry while you feast, 
Will blush with shame while you are glorified, 
Will feel the ache and chill of desolation. 
Even in the very bosom of your love. 
Mate yourself with this woman, fit for what ? 
To make the sport of Moorish palaces, 
A lewd Herodias .... 

Don Silva. 

Stop ! no other man, 
Priest though he were, had had his throat left 

free 
For passage of those words. I would have 
clutched 



64 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

His serpent's neck, and flung him out to hell ! 

A monk must needs defile the name of love : 

He knows it but as tempting devils paint it. 

You think to scare my love from its resolve 

With arbitrary consequences, strained 

By rancorous effort from the thinnest motes 

Of possibility ? — cite hideous lists 

Of sins irrelevant, to frighten me 

With bugbears' names, as women fright a child ? 

Poor pallid wisdom, taught by inference 

From blood-drained life, where phantom terrors 

rule, 
And all achievement is to leave undone ! 
Paint the day dark, make sunshine cold to me, 
Abolish the earth's fairness, prove it all 
A fiction of my eyes — then, after that, 
Profane Fedalma. 

Prior. 

O there is no need : 
She has profaned herself. Go, raving man, 
And see her dancing now. Go, see your bride 
Flaunting her beauties grossly in the gaze 
Of vulgar idlers — eking out the show 
Made in the Placa by a mountebank. 
I hinder you no farther. 

Don Silva. 

It is false ! 

Prior. 
Go, prove it false, then. 

[Father Isidor 
Drew on his cowl and turned away. The face 
That flashed anathemas, in swift eclipse 
Seemed Silva's vanished confidence. In haste 
He rushed unsignalled through the corridor 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 65 

To where the Duchess once, Fedalma now, 
Had residence retired from din of arms — 
Knocked, opened, found all empty — said 
With muffled voice, *' Fedalma !" — called more 

loud, 
More oft on Inez, the old trusted nurse — 
Then searched the terrace-garden, calling still, 
But heard no answering sound, and saw no face 
Save painted faces staring all unmoved 
By agitated tones. He hurried back, 
Giving half-conscious orders as he went 
To page and usher, that they straight should seek 
Lady Fedalma ; then with stinging shame 
Wished himself silent ; reached again the room 
Where still the Father's menace seemed to hang- 
Thickening the air ; snatched cloak and plumed 

hat, 
And grasped, not knowing why, his poniard's 

hilt ; 
Then checked himself and said : — ] 

If he spoke truth ! 
To know were wound enough — to see the truth 
Were fire upon the wound. It must be false ! 
His hatred saw amiss, or snatched mistake 
In other men's report. I am a fool ! 
But where can she be gone ? gone secretly ? 
And in my absence ? Oh, she meant no wrong ! 
I am a fool ! — But where can she be gone ? 
With only Inez ? Oh, she meant no wrong ! 
I swear she never meant it. There's no wrong 
But she would make it momentary right 
By innocence in doing it. . . . 

And yet, 
What is our certainty ? Why, knowing all 
That is not secret. Mighty confidence ! 
One pulse of Time makes the base hollow — sends 



66 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

The towering certainty we built so high 
Toppling in fragments meaningless. What is — 
What will be — must be — pooh ! they wait the key 
Of that which is not yet ; all other keys 
Are made of our conjectures, take their sense 
From humors fooled by hope, or by despair. 
Know w r hat is good ? O God, we know not yet 
If bliss itself is not young misery 
With fangs swift growing. . . . 

But some outward harm 
May even now be hurting, grieving her. 
Oh ! I must search — face shame — if shame be 

there. 
Here, Perez ! hasten to Don Alvar — tell him 
Lady Fedalma must be sought — is lost — 
Has met, I fear, some mischance. He must send 
Toward divers points. I go myself to seek 
First in the town. . . . 

[As Perez oped the door, 
Then moved aside for passage of the Duke, 
Fedalma entered, cast away the cloud 
Of serge and linen, and outbeaming bright, 
Advanced a pace toward Silva — but then paused, 
For he had started and retreated ; she, 
Quick and responsive as the subtle air 
To change in him, divined that she must wait 
Until they were alone : they stood and looked. 
Within the Duke was struggling confluence 
Of feelings manifold — pride, anger, dread, 
Meeting in stormy rush with sense secure 
That she was present, with the new-stilled thirst 
Of gazing love, with trust inevitable 
As in beneficent virtues of the light 
And all earth's sweetness, that Fedalma's soul 
Was free from blemishing purpose. Yet proud 
wrath 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 67 

Leaped in dark flood above the purer stream 
That strove to drown it : Anger seeks its prey — 
Something to tear with sharp-edged tooth and 

claw, 
Likes not to go off hungry, leaving Love 
To feast on milk and honeycomb at will. 
Silva's heart said, he must be happy soon, 
She being there ; but to be happy — first 
He must be angry, having cause. Yet love 
Shot like a stifled cry of tenderness 
All through the harshness he would fain have 

given 
To the dear word,] 

Don Silva. 
Fedalma ! 

Fedalma. 

O my lord ! 
You are come back, and I was wandering ! 

Don Silva {coldly but with suppressed agita- 
tion). 
You meant I should be ignorant. 

Fedalma. 

Oh no, 
I should have told you after — not before, 
Lest you should hinder me. 

Don Silva. 

Then my known wish 
Can make no hindrance ? 

Fedalma (archly). 

That depends 
On what the wish may be. You wished me once 
Not to uncage the birds. I meant to obey : 
But in a moment something — something stronger, 



68 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Forced me to let them out. It did no harm. 
They all came back again — the silly birds 1 
I told you, after. 

Don SlLVA (ivith haughty coldness). 
Will you tell me now 
What was the prompting stronger than my wish 
That made you wander ? 

Fed ALMA (advancing a step toward him, with a 
sudden look of anxiety). 

Are you angry ? 

Don Silva (smiling bitterly). 

Angry? 
A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain 
To feel much anger. 

Fed ALMA (still more anxiously). 

You — deep-wounded ? 

Don Silva. 

Yes! 
Have I not made your place and dignity 
The very heart of my ambition ? You — 
No enemy could do it — you alone 
Can strike it mortally. 

Fedalma. 

Nay, Silva, nay. 
Has some one told you false ? I only went 
To see the world with Inez — see the town, 
The people, everything. It was no harm. 
I did not mean to dance : it happened so 
At last . . . 

Don Silva. 
O God, it's true then ! — true that you, 
A maiden nurtured as rare flowers are, 
The very air of heaven sifted fine 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 69 

Lest any mote should mar your purity, 
Have flung yourself out on the dusty way 
For common eyes to see your beauty soiled ! 
Vou own it true — you danced upon the Pla§a ? 

Fed alma {proudly). 

Yes, it is true. I was not wrong to dance. 
The air was filled with music, with a song 
That seemed the voice of the sweet eventide — 
The glowing light entering through eye and ear- 
That seemed our love — mine, yours — they are 

but one — 
Trembling through all my limbs, as fervent words 
Tremble within my soul and must be spoken. 
And all the people felt a common joy 
And shouted for the dance. A brightness soft 
As of the angels moving down to see 
Illumined the broad space. The joy, the life 
Around, within me, were one heaven : I longed 
To blend them visibly : I longed to dance 
Before the people — be as mounting flame 
To all that burned within them ! Nay, I danced ; 
There was no longing : I but did the deed 
Being moved to do it. 

(As Fedalma speaks, she and Don Silva are 
gradually drazvn nearer to each ot/ier.) 

Oh ! I seemed new-waked 
To life in unison with a multitude — 
Feeling my soul upborne by all their souls. 
Floating within their gladness ! Soon I lost 
All sense of separateness : Fedalma died 
As a star dies, and melts into the light. 
I was not, but joy was, and love and triumph. 
Nay, my dear lord, I never could do aught 
But I must feel you present. And once done, 



7° 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



Why, you must love it better than your wish. 
I pray you, say so — say, it was not wrong ! 

( While Fed alma has been making this last ap- 
peal, they have gradually come close together, 
and at last embrace. ) 

Don Silva {holding her hands). 
Dangerous rebel ! if the world without 
Were pure as that within . . . but 'tis a book 
Wherein you only read the poesy 
And miss all wicked meanings. Hence the need 
For trust — obedience — call it what you will — 
Toward him whose life will be your guard— 

toward me 
Who now am soon to be your husband. 

Fedalma. 

Yes! 
That very thing that when I am your wife 
I shall be something different, — shall be 
I know not what, a Duchess with new thoughts — 
For nobles never thkik like common men, 
Nor wives like maidens (Oh, you wot not yet 
Hew much I note, with all my ignorance) — 
That very thing has made me more resolve 
To have my will before I am your wife. 
How can the Duchess ever satisfy 
Fedalma's unwed eyes ? and so to-day 
I scolded Inez till she cried and went. 

Don Silva. 
It was a guilty weakness : she knows well 
That since you pleaded to be left more free 
From tedious tendance and control of dames 
Whose rank matched better with your destiny, 
Her charge — my trust — was weightier. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 71 

Fedalma. 

Nay, my *ord, 
You must not blame her, dear old nurse. She 

cried. 
Why, you would have consented too, at last 
I said such things ! I was resolved to go, 
And see the streets, the shops, the men at work. 
The women, little children — everything. 
Just as it is when nobody looks on. 
And I have done it ! We were out four hours. 
I feel so wise. 

Don Silva. 

Had you but seen the town, 
You innocent naughtiness, not shown yourself— 
Shown yourself dancing — you bewilder me ! — 
Frustrate my judgment with strange negatives 
That seem like poverty, and yet are wealth 
In precious womanliness, beyond the dower 
Of other women : wealth in virgin gold, 
Outweighing all their petty currency. 
You daring modesty ! You shrink no more 
From gazing men than from the gazing flowers 
That, dreaming sunshine, open as you pass. 

Fedalma. 

No, I should like the world to look at me 

With eyes of love that make a second day. 

I think your eyes would keep the life in me 

Though I had nought to feed on else. Their blue 

Is better than the heavens' — holds more love 

For me, Fedalma — is a little heaven 

For this one little world that looks up now. 

Don Silva. 

O precious little world ! you make the heaven 
As the earth makes the sky. But, dear, all eyes 



72 THE SPANISH GYPSY, 

Though looking even on you, have not a glance 
That cherishes .... 

Fedalma. 

Ah no, I meant to tell you — 
Tell how my dancing ended with a pang. 
There came a man, one among many more. 
But he came first, with iron on his limbs. 
And when the bell tolled, and the people prayed. 
And I stood pausing — then he looked at me. 
O Silva, such a man ! I thought he rose 
From the dark place of iong-imprisoned souls, 
To say that Christ had never come to them. 
It was a look to shame a seraph's joy. 
And make him sad in heaven. It found me there — 
Seemed to have travelled far to find me the** 
And grasp me — claim this festal life of mine 
As heritage of sorrow, chill my blood 
With the cold iron of some unknown bonds. 
The gladness hurrying full within my veins 
Was sudden frozen, and I danced no more. 
But seeing you let loose the stream of joy, 
Mingling the present with the sweetest past. 
Yet, Silva, still I see him. Who is he? 
Who are those prisoners with him ? Are they 
Moors? 

Don Silva. 

No, they are Gypsies, strong and cunning knaves, 
A double game to us by the Moors' loss . 
The man you mean — their chief — is an ally 
The infidel will miss. His look might chase 
A herd of monks, and make them fly more swift: 
Than from St. Jerome's lion. Such vague fear, 
Such bird-like tremors when that savage glance 
Turned full upon you in your height of joy 
Was natural, was not worth emphasis. 
Forget it, dear. This hour is worth whole days 



THE SPANISH GYPSY, 73 

When we are sundered. Danger urges us 
To quick resolve. 

Fed alma. 

What danger ? what resolve ? 
I never felt chill shadow in my heart 
Until this sunset. 

Don Silva. 

A dark enmity- 
Plots how to sever us. And our defence 
Is speedy marriage, secretly achieved, 
Then publicly declared. Beseech you, dear, 
Grant me this confidence ; do my will in this, 
Trusting the reasons why I overset 
All my own airy building raised so high 
Of bridal honors, marking when you step 
From off your maiden throne to come to me 
And bear the yoke of love. There is great need. 
I hastened home, carrying this prayer to you 
Within my heart. The bishop is my friend, 
Furthers our marriage, holds in enmity — 
Some whom we love not and who love not us. 
By this night's moon our priest will be despatched 
From Jaen. I shall march an escort strong 
To meet him. Ere a second sun from this 
Has risen — you consenting — we may wed. 

Fedalma. 
None knowing that we wed ? 

Don Silva.. 

Beforehand none 
Save Inez and Don Alvar. But the vows 
Once safely binding us, my household all 
Shall know you as thejr Duchess. No man 

then 
Can aim a blow at you but through my breast. 



74 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And what stains you must stain our ancient 

name ; 
If any hate you I will take his hate, 
And wear it as a glove upon my helm ; 
Nay, God himself will never have the power 
To strike you solely and leave me unhurt, 
He having made us one. Now put the seal 
Of your dear lips on that. 

Fed alma. 

A solemn kiss ? — 
Such as I gave you when you came that day 
From Cordova, when first we said we loved ? 
When you had left the ladies of the Court 
For thirst to see me ; and you told me so, 
And then I seemed to know why I had lived. 
I never knew before. A kiss like that ? 

Don Silva. 
Yes, yes, you face divine ! "When was our 

kiss 
Like any other ? 

Fedalma. 

Nay, I cannot tell 
What other kisses are. But that one kiss 
Remains upon my lips. The angels, spirits, 
Creatures with finer sense, may see it there. 
And now another kiss that will not die, 
Saying, To-morrow I shall be your wife ! 

( They kiss, and pause a moment , looking 
earnestly in each other's eyes. Then 
Fedalma, breaking away from Don 
Silva, stands at a little distance from 
him with a look of roguish delight.) 

Now I am glad I saw the town to-day 
Before I ani a Duchess — glad I gave 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



75 



This poor Fedalma all her wish. For once, 

Long years ago, I cried when Inez said, 

44 You are no more a little girl ;" I grieved 

To part for ever from that little girl 

And all her happy world so near the ground. 

It must be sad to outlive aught we love. 

So I shall grieve a little for these days 

Of poor unwed Fedalma. Oh, they are sweet, 

And none will come just like them. Perhaps the 

wind 
Wails so in winter for the summers dead. 
And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries 
For what has been and is not. Are they, 

Silva ? 

(She comes nearer to him again, and lays 
her hand on his arm, looking up at him 
with melancholy.) 

Don Silva. 
Why, dearest, you began in merriment, 
And end as sadly as a widowed bird. 
Some touch mysterious has new-tuned your soul 
To melancholy sequence. You soared high 
In that wild flight of rapture when you danced, 
And now you droop. 'Tis arbitrary grief, 
Surfeit of happiness, that mourns for loss 
Of unwed love, which does but die like seed 
For fuller harvest of our tenderness. 
We in our wedded life shall know no loss. 
We shall new-date our years. What went before 
Will be the time of promise, shadows, dreams ; 
But this, full revelation of great love. 
For rivers blent take in a broader heaven, 
And we shall blend our souls. Away with grief ! 
When this dear head shall wear the double 



j6 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Of wife and Duchess — spiritually crowned 
With sworn espousal before God and man — 
Visibly crowned with jewels that bespeak 
The chosen sharer of my heritage — 
My love will gather perfectness, as thoughts 
That nourish us to magnanimity 
Grow perfect with more perfect utterance, 
Gathering full-shapen strength. And then these 
gems, 

(Don Silva draws Fed alma toward the 
jeivel-casket on the table, and opens it.) 

Helping the utterance of my soul's full choice. 
Will be the words made richer by just use, 
And have new meaning in their lustrousness. 
You know these jewels ; they are precious signs 
Of long-transmitted honor, heightened still 
By worthy wearing ; and I give them you — 
Ask you to take them — place our house's trust 
In her sure keeping whom my heart has found 
Worthiest, most beauteous. These rubies — 

see — 
Were falsely placed if not upon your brow. 

(Fed alma, while Don Silva holds open 
the casket, bends over it % looking at thi 
jewels with delight.) 

Fedalma. 
Ah, I remember them. In childish days 
I felt as if they were alive and breathed. 
I used to sit with awe and look at them. 
And now they will be mine ! I'll put them on. 
Help me, my lord, and you shall see me now 
Somewhat as I shall look at Court with you. 
That we may know if I shall bear them well 
I have a fear sometimes : I think your love 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 77 

Has never paused within your eyes to look, 
And only passes through them into mine. 
But when the Court is looking, and the queen, 
Your eyes will follow theirs. Oh, if you saw 
That I was other than you wished — 'twere death ! 

Don Silva {taking up a jewel and placing U 

against her ear). 
Nay, let us try. Take out your ear-ring, sweet 
This ruby glows with longing for your ear. 

Fedalma (taking out her ear-rings, and then 

lifting up the other jewels , one by one). 
Pray, fasten in the rubies. 

(Don Silva begins to put in the ear-ring.) 
I was right ! 
These gems have life in them : their colors 

speak, 
Say what words fail of. So do many things — 
The scent of jasmine, and the fountain's plash, 
The moving shadows on the far-off hills, 
The slanting moonlight, and our clasping hands. 
O Silva, there's an ocean round our words 
That overflows and drowns them. Do you know 
Sometimes when we sit silent, and the air 
Breathes gently on us from the orange-trees, 
It seems that with the whisper of a word 
Our souls must shrink, get poorer, more apart. 
Is it not true ? 

Don Silva. 

Yes, dearest, it is true. 
Speech is but broken light upon the depth 
Of the unspoken : even your loved words 
Float in the larger meaning of your voice 
As something dimmer. 



78 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

(He is still trying in vain to fasten the second 
ear-ring, while she has stooped again over 
the casket.) 

Fedalma {raising her head). 

Ah ! your lordly hands 
Will never fix that jewel. Let me try. 
Women's small finger-tips have eyes. 

Don Silva. 

No, no ! 
I like the task, only you must be still. 

(She stands perfectly still, clasping her hands 
together while he fastens the second ear- 
ring. Suddenly a clanking noise is heard 
without. ) 

Fedalma (starting 7vith an expression of pain). 
What is that sound ? — that jarring cruel sound ? 
'Tis there — outside. 

(She tries to start away toward the window, but 
Don Silva detains her) 

Don Silva. 

O heed it not, it comes 
From workmen in the outer gallery. 

Fedalma. 
It is the sound of fetters : sound of work 
Is not so dismal. Hark, they pass along ! 
I know it is those Gypsy prisoners. 
I saw them, heard their chains. O horrible, 
To be in chains ! Why, I with all my bliss 
Have longed sometimes to fly and be at large ; 
Have felt imprisoned in my luxury 
W T ith servants for my jailers. O my lord. 
Do you not wish the world were different ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 79 

Don Silva. 
It will be different when this war has ceased. 
You, wedding me, will make it different, 
Making one life more perfect. 

Fedalma. 

That is true ! 
And I shall beg much kindness at your hands 
For those who are less happy than ourselves. — 
(Brightening) Oh I shall rule you ! ask for many 

things 
Before the world, which you will not deny 
For very pride, lest men should say, i4 The Duke 
Holds lightly by his Duchess ; he repents 
His humble choice." 

(She breaks away from hi?n and returns to the 
jewels, taking up a necklace, and clasping 
it on her neck, while he takes a circlet of 
diamonds and rubies and raises it toward 
her head as he speaks.) 

Don Silva. 

Doubtless, I shall persist 
In loving you, to disappoint the world ; 
Out of pure obstinacy feel myself 
Happiest of men. Now, take the coronet. 

(Pie places the circlet on her head.) 

The diamonds want more light. See, from this 

lamp 
I can set tapers burning. 

Fedalma. 

Tell me, now, 
When all these cruel wars are at an end, 
And when we go to Court at Cordova, 



8o THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Or Seville, or Toledo — wait awhile, 
I must be farther off for you to see — 

(She retreats to a distance from him, and then 
advances slowly.) 

Now think (I would the tapers gave more light !} 
If when you show me at the tournaments 
Among the other ladies, they will say, 
4 % Duke Silva is well matched. His bride was 

nought, 
Was some poor foster-child, no man knows what : 
Yet is her carriage noble, all her robes 
Are worn with grace : she might have been well 

born." 
Will they say so ? Think now we are at Court, 
And all eyes bent on me. 

Don Silva. 

Fear not, my Duchess ? 
Some knight who loves may say his lady-love 
Is fairer, being fairest. T^one can say 
Don Silva's bride might better fit her rank. 
You will make rank seem natural as kind, 
As eagle's plumage or the lion's might. 
A crown upon your brow would seem God-made. 

Fed alma. 
Then I am glad ! I shall try on to-night 
The other jewels — have the tapers lit, 
And see the diamonds sparkle. 

(She goes to the casket again.) 
Here is gold — 
A necklace of pure gold — most finely wrought. 
( She takes out a large gold necklace and holds it 
up before her, then turns to Don Silva.) 
But this is one that you have worn, my lord ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. gi 

Don Silva. 
No, love, I never wore it. Lay it down. 

(He puts the necklace gently out of her hand> 
then joins both her hands and holds them 
up between his own) 

You must not look at jewels any more, 
But look at me. 

Fed alma {looking up at him.) 
O you dear heaven ! 
I should see nought if you were gone. 'Tis true 
My mind is too much given to gauds — to things 
That fetter thought within this narrow space. 
That comes of fear. 

Don Silva. 
What fear? 

Fed alma. 

Fear of myself. 
For when I walk upon the battlements 
And see the river travelling toward the plain, 
The mountains screening all the world beyond, 
A longing comes that haunts me in my dreams — 
Dreams where I seem to spring from off the 

walls, 
And fly far, far away, until at last 
I find myself alone among the rocks, 
Remember then that I have left you — try 
To fly back to you — and my wings are gone ! 

Don Silva. 
A wicked dream ! If ever I left you, 
Even in dreams, it was some demon dragged me. 
And with fierce struggles I awaked myself. 



82 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Fedalma. 
It is a hateful dream, and when it comes — 
I mean, when in my waking hours there comes 
That longing to be free, I am afraid : 
I run down to my chamber, plait my hair, 
Weave colors in it, lay out all my gauds, 
And in my mind make new ones prettier. 
You see I have two minds, and both are foolisk 
Sometimes a torrent rushing through my soul 
Escapes in wild strange wishes ; presently, 
It dwindles to a little babbling rill 
And plays among the pebbles and the flowers. 
Inez will have it I lack broidery, 
Says nought else gives content to noble maids. 
But I have never broidered — never will. 
No, when I am a Duchess and a wife 
I shall ride forth — may I not ? — by your side. 

Don Silva. 
Yes, you shall ride upon a palfrey, black 
To match Bavieca. Not Queen Isabel 
Will be a sight more gladdening to men's eyes 
Than my dark queen Fedalma. 

Fedalma. 

Ah, but you, 
You are my king, and I shall tremble still 
With some great fear that throbs within my love, 
Does your love fear ? 

Don Silva. 

Ah, yes ! all preciousness 
To mortal hearts is guarded by a fear. 
All love fears loss, and most that loss supreme, 
Its own perfection — seeing, feeling change 
From high to lower, dearer to less dear. 
Can love be careless ? If we lost our love 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. %$ 

What should we find ? — with this sweet Past torn 

off, 
Our lives deep scarred just where their beauty 

lay? 
The best we found thenceforth were still a worse : 
The only better is a Past that lives 
On through an added Present, stretching still 
In hope unchecked by shaming memories 
To life's last breath. And so I tremble too 
Before my queen Fedalma. 

Fed alma. 

That is just. 
Twere hard of Love to make us women fear 
And leave you bold. Yet Love is not quite even. 
For feeble creatures, little birds and fawns, 
Are shaken more by fear, while large strong 

things 
Can bear it stoutly. So we women still 
Are not well dealt with. Yet I'd choose to be 
Fedalma loving Silva. You, my lord, 
Hold the worse share, since you must love poor 

me. 
But is it what we love, or how we love, 
That makes true good ? 

Don Silva. 

O subtlety ! for me 
Tis what I love determines how I love. 
The goddess with pure rites reveals herself 
And makes pure worship. 

Fedalma. 

Do you worship me 1 
Don Silva. 
Ay, with that best of worship which adores 
Goodness adorable. 



84 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Fed ALMA {archly). 

Goodness obedient, 
Doing your will, devoutest worshipper ? 

Don Silva. 
Yes — listening to this prayer. This very night 
I shall go forth. And you will rise with day 
And wait for me ? 

Fedalma. 
Yes. 

Don Silva. 

I shall surely come. 
And then we shall be married. Now I go 
To audience fixed in Abderahman's tower. 
Farewell, love ! 

{They embrace.) 
Fedalma. 

Some chill dread possesses me ! 

Don Silva. 
Oh, confidence has oft been evil augury, 
So dread may hold a promise. Sweet, farewell ! 
I shall send tendance as I pass, to bear 
This casket to your chamber. — One more kiss. 

(Exit.) 

Sedalma (when Don Silva is gone, returning to 
the casket \ and looking dreamily at the jewels). 

Yes, now that good seems less impossible ! 
Now it seems true that I shall be his wife, 
Be ever by his side, and make a part 

In all his purposes 

These rubies greet me Duchess. How they 

glow ! 
Their prisoned souls are throbbing like my own. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 85 

Perchance they loved once, were ambitious, 

proud ; 
Or do they only dream of wider life, 
Ache from intenseness, yearn to burst the wall 
Compact of crystal splendor, and to flood 
Some wider space with glory ? Poor, poor gems ! 
We must be patient in our prison-house, 
And find our space in loving. Pray you, love 

me. 
Let us be glad together. And you, gold — 

{She takes up the gold necklace. ) 

You wondrous necklace — will you love me too, 
And be my amulet to keep me safe 
From eyes that hurt ? 

{She spreads out the necklace, meaning to 
clasp it on her neck. Then pauses ', 
startled y holding it before Jier.) 

Why, it is magical ! 
He says he never wore it — yet these lines — 
Nay, if he had, I should remember well 
'Twas he, no other. And these twisted lines — 
They seem to speak to me as writing would, 
To bring a message from the dead, dead past. 
What is their secret ? Are they characters ? 
I never learned them ; yet they stir some sense 
That once I dreamed — I have forgotten what. 
Or was it life ? Perhaps I lived before 
In some strange world where first my soul was 

shaped, 
And all this passionate love, and joy, and pain, 
That come, I know not whence, and sway my 

deeds, 
Are old imperious memories, blind yet strong, 
That this world stirs within me ; as this chain 
Stirs some strange certainty of visions gone, 



86 THE SPANISH GYPS I. 

And all my mind is as an eye that stares 
Into the darkness painfully. 

( While Fedalma has been looking at the necklace, 
Juan has entered \ and finding himself un- 
observed by her, says at last,) 

Senora ! 

Fedalma starts, and gathering tlie necklace to- 
gether, turns round. 

Oh, Juan, it is you ! 

Juan. 

I met the Duke — 
Had waited long without, no matter why — 
And when he ordered one to wait on you 
And carry forth a burthen you would give, 
I prayed for leave to be the servitor. 
Don Silva owes me twenty granted wishes 
That I have never tendered, lacking aught 
That I could wish for and a Duke could grant ; 
But this one wish to serve you weighs as much 
As twenty other longings. 

Fedalma (smiling). 

That sounds well. 
You turn your speeches prettily as songs. 
But I will not forget the many days 
You have neglected me. Your pupil learns 
But little from you now. Her studies flag. 
The Duke says, <4 That is idle Juan's way : 
Foets must rove — are honey-sucking birds 
And know not constancy." Said he quite true 1 

Juan. 
O lady, constancy has kind and rank. 
One man's is lordly, plump and bravely clad, 
Holds its head high, and tells the world its name : 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 87 

Another man's is beggared, must go bare, 
And shiver through the world, the jest of all, 
But that it puts the motley on, and plays 
Itself the jester. But I see you hold 
The Gypsy's necklace : it is quaintly wrought. 

Fedalma. 
The Gypsy's ? Do you know its history ? 

Juan. 
No farther back than when I saw it taken 
From off its wearer's neck — the Gypsy chief's. 

Fedalma (eagerly). 
"What ! he who paused, at tolling of the bell, 
Before me in the Placa ? 

Juan. 

Yes, I saw 
His look fixed on you. 

Fedalma. 

Know you aught of him ? 
Juan. 
Something and nothing — as I know the sky, 
Or some great story of the olden time 
That hides a secret. I have oft talked with him. 
He seems to say much, yet is but a wizard 
Who draws down rain by sprinkling ; throws me 

out 
Some pregnant text that urges comment ; casts 
A sharp-hooked question, baited with such skill 
It needs must catch the answer. 

Fedalma. 

It is hard 
That such a man should be a prisoner — 
Be chained to work. 



88 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Juan. 
Oh, he is dangerous f 
Granada with this Zarca for a king 
Might still maim Christendom. He is of those 
Who steal the keys from snoring Destiny 
And make the prophets lie. A Gypsy, too, 
Suckled by hunted beasts, whose mother-milk 
Has filled his veins with hate. 

Fedalma. 

I thought his eyes 
Spoke not of hatred — seemed to say he bore 
The pain of those who never could be saved. 
What if the Gypsies are but savage beasts 
And must be hunted ? — let them be set free. 
Have benefit of chase, or stand at bay 
And fight for life and offspring. Prisoners ! 
Oh ! they have made their fires beside the 

streams, 
Their walls have been the rocks, the pillared 

pines, 
Their roof the living sky that breathes with light : 
They may well hate a cage, like strong-winged 

birds, 
Like me, who have no wings, but only wishes. 
I will beseech the Duke to set them free. 

Juan. 
Pardon me, lady, if I seem to warn, 
Or try to play the sage. What if the Duke 
Love not to hear of Gypsies ? if their name 
Were poisoned for him once, being used amiss ? 
I speak not as of fact. Our nimble souls 
Can spin an insubstantial universe 
Suiting our mood, and call it possible, 
Sooner than see one grain with eye exact 
And give strict record of it. Yet by chance 



THE SPANISH GYPSY, 89 

Our fancies may be truth and make us seers. 
'Tis a rare teeming world, so harvest-full, 
Even guessing ignorance may pluck some fruit. 
Note what I say no farther than will stead 
The siege you lay. I would not seem to tell 
Aught that the Duke may think and yet withhold ; 
It were a trespass in me. 

Fedalma. 

Fear not, Juan. 
Your words bring daylight with them when you 

speak. 
I understand your care. But I am brave — 
Oh ! and so cunning ! — always I prevail. 
Now, honored Troubadour, if you will be 
Your pupil's servant, bear this casket hence. 
Nay, not the necklace : it is hard to place. 
Pray go before me ; Inez will be there. 

(Exit Juan with the casket), 

Fedalma (looking again at the necklace). 
It is his past clings to you, not my own. 
If we have each our angels, good and bad, 
Fates, separate from ourselves, who act for us 
When we are blind, or sleep, then this man's fate, 
Hovering about the thing he used to wear, 
Has laid its grasp on mine appealingly. 
Dangerous, is he? — well, a Spanish knight 
Would have his enemy strong — defy, not bind 

him. 
I can dare all things when my soul is moved 
By something hidden that possesses me. 
If Silva said this man must keep his chains 
I should find ways to free him — disobey 
And free him as I did the birds. But no ! 
As soon as we are wed, I'll put my prayer. 



9° 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



And he will not deny me : he is good. 

Oh, I shall have much power as well as joy ? 

Duchess Fedalma may do what she will, 

A Street by the Castle. JuAN leans against a 
parapet, in moonlight, and touches his lute half 
unconsciously. Pepita stands on tiptoe watch- 
ing him, and then advances till her shadow 
falls in front of him. He looks toward her. 
A piece of white drape* y thrown over her head 
catches the moonlight. 

Juan. 
Ha ! my Pepita ! see how thin and long * 
Your shadow is. Tis so your ghost will be 
When you are dead. 

Pepita (crossing herself). 

Dead ! — O the blessed saints ! 
You would be glad, then, if Pepita died? 

Juan. 
Glad ! why ? Dead maidens are not merry. 

Ghosts 
Are doleful company. I like you living. 

Pepita. 
I think you like me not. I wish you did. 
Sometimes you sing to me and make me dance ; 
Another time you take no heed of me, 
Not though I kiss my hand to you and smile. 
But Andres would be glad if I kissed him. 

Juan. 
My poor Pepita, I am old. 
Pepita. 

No, no. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. gi 

You have no wrinkles. 

Juan. 

Yes, I have — within ; 
The wrinkles are within, my little bird. 
Why, I have lived through twice a thousand 

years, 
And kept the company of men whose bones 
Crumbled before the blessed Virgin lived. 

PEPITA (crossing herself). 
Nay, God defend us, that is wicked talk ! 
You say it but to scorn me. ( With a sob) I will 

Juan. 
Stay, little pigeon. I am not unkind. 
Come, sit upon the wall. Nay, never cry. 
Give me your cheek to kiss. There, cry no more ! 

(PEPITA, sitting on the low parapet, puts up her 
cheek to JUAN, who kisses it, putting his 
hand under her chin. She takes his hand 
and kisses it. ) 

Pepita. 

I like to kiss your hand. It is so good — 
So smooth and soft. 

Juan. 

Well, well, I'll sing to you. 

Pepita. 
A pretty song, loving and merry ? 

Juan. 

Yes. 



92 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

(Juan sings.) 
Memory, 
Tell to me 
What is fair. 
Past compare. 

In the land of Tubal? 

Is it Spring s 
Lovely things. 
Blossoms white, 
Rosy dight ? 

Then it is Pepita. 

Summer s crest 
Red-gold ti-essed, 

Corn-flowers peeping under?—* 
Idle noons, 
Lingering moons. 
Sudden cloud, 
Lightning s shroud, 
Sudden rain, 
Quick again 

Smiles where late was thunder?^ 
Are all these 
Made to please t 

So too is Pepita. 

A utumns prime, 
Apple -tit? te \ 
Smooth cheek round, 
Heart all sound? — 
Is it this 
You would kiss ? 
Then it is Pepita. 

You can bring 
No sweet thing, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 93 

But my mind 
Still shall find 
It is my Pepita. 

Memory 
Says to me 
It is she — 
She is fair 
Past compare 
In the land of Tubal 

Pepita {seizing Juan's hand again). 
Oh, then, you do love me ? 

Juan. 

Yes, in the song, 
Pepita (sadly). 
Not out of it ? — not love me out of it ? 

Juan. 
Only a little out of it, my bird. 
When I was singing I was Andres, say, 
Or one who loves you better still than he. 

Pepita. 
Not yourself ? 

Juan. 
No! 
Pepita (throwing his hand down pettishly). 

Then take it back again ! 
I will not have it ! 

Juan. 
Listen, little one. 
Juan is not a living man by himself : 
His life is breathed in him by other men, 



9 4 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And they speak out of him. He is their voice. 
Juan's own life he gave once quite away. 
Pepita's lover sang that song — not Juan. 
We old, old poets, if we kept our hearts, 
Should hardly know them from another man's. 
They shrink to make room for the many more 
We keep within us. There, now — one more 

kiss, 
And then go home again. 

Pepita {a little frightened, after letting J VAN 
kiss her). 

You are not wicked ? 

Juan. 

Ask your confessor — tell him what I said. 

(Pepita goes, while Juan thrums his lute again \ 
and sings.) 

Came a pretty maid 

By the moon s pure light, 
Jjoved me well, she said, 

Eyes with tears all bright, 
A pretty maid ! 

But too late she strayed, 
Moonlight ptire was there ; 

She was nought but shade 
Hiding the more fair, 
The heavenly maid! 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



95 



A vaulted room all stone. The light shed from a 
high tamp. Wooden chairs, a desk, book- 
shelves. The Prior, in white frock, a black 
rosary with a crucifix of ebony and ivoiy at 
his side, is walking up and down, holding a 
written paper in his hands, which are clasped 
behind him. 

What if this witness lies ? he says he heard her 
Counting her blasphemies on a rosary, 
And in a bold discourse with Salomo, 
Say that the Host was nought but ill-mixed flour, 
That it was mean to pray — she never prayed. 
I know the man who wrote this for a cur, 
Who follows Don Diego, sees life's good 
In scraps my nephew flings to him. What then ? 
Particular lies may speak a general truth. 
I guess him false, but know her heretic — 
Know her for Satan's instrument, bedecked 
With heathenish charms, luring the souls of men 
To damning trust in good unsanctified. 
Let her be prisoned — questioned — she will give 
Witness against herself, that were this false . . . 
(He looks at the paper again and reads, then 
again thrusts it behind him.) 
The matter and the color are not false : 
The form concerns the witness not the judge ; 
For proof is gathered by the sifting mind, 
Not given in crude and formal circumstance. 
Suspicion is a heaven-sent lamp, and I — 
I, watchman of the Holy Office, bear 
That lamp in trust. I will keep faithful watch- 
The Holy Inquisition's discipline 
Is mercy, saving her, if penitent — 
God grant it ! — else — root up the poison-plant, 
Though 'twere a lily with a golden heart ! 



96 THE SPANISH GYPSY, 

This spotless maiden with her pagan soul 

Is the arch-enemy's trap : he turns his back 

On all the prostitutes, and watches her 

To see her poison men with false belief 

In rebel virtues. She has poisoned Silva ; 

His shifting mind, dangerous in fitfulness, 

Strong in the contradiction of itself, 

Carries his young ambitions wearily. 

As holy vows regretted. Once he seemed 

The fresh-oped flower of Christian knighthood. 

born 
For feats of holy daring ; and I said : 
44 That half of life which I, as monk, renounce, 
Shall be fulfilled in him : Silva will be 
That saintly noble, that wise warrior. 
That blameless excellence in worldly gifts 
I would have been, had I not asked to live 
The higher life of man impersonal 
Who reigns o'er all things by refusing all." 
What is his promise now ? Apostasy 
From every high intent : — languid, nay. gone, 
The prompt devoutness of a generous heart, 
The strong obedience of a reverent will. 
That breathes the Church's air and sees her light 
He peers and strains with feeble questioning. 
Or else he jests. He thinks I know it not — 
I who have read the history of his lapse, 
As clear as it is writ in the angel's book. 
He will defy me — flings great words at me — 
Me who have governed all our house's acts, 
Since I, a stripling, ruled his stripling father. 
This maiden is the cause, and if they wed, 
The Holy War may count a captain lost. 
For better he were dead than keep his place, 
And fill it imfamously : in God's war 
Slackness is infamy. Shall I stand by 
And let the tempter win ? defraud Christ's cause 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 9} 

And blot his banner ? — all for scruples weak 
Of pity toward their young and frolicsome blood ; 
Or nice discrimination of the tool 
By which my hand shall work a sacred rescue ? 
The fence of rules is for the purblind crowd ; 
They walk by averaged precepts : sovereign men, 
Seeing by God's light, see the general 
By seeing all the special — own no rule 
But their full vision of the moment's worth. 
'Tis so God governs, using wicked men- 
Nay, scheming fiends, to work his purposes. 
Evil that good may come ? Measure the good 
Before you say what's evil. Perjury ? 
I scorn the perjurer, but I will use him 
To serve the holy truth. There is no lie 
Save in his soul, and let his soul be judged. 
I know the truth, and act upon the truth. 

O God, thou knowest that my will is pure. 
Thy servant owns nought for himself, his wealth 
Is but obedience. And I have sinned 
In keeping small respects of human love — 
Calling it mercy. Mercy ? Where evil is 
True mercy holds a sword. Mercy would save. 
Save whom ? Save serpents, locusts, wolves ? 
Or out of pity let the idiots gorge 
Within a famished town ? Or save the gains 
Of men who trade in poison lest they starve ? 
Save all things mean and foul that clog the earth 
Stifling the better ? Save the fools who cling 
P'or refuge round their hideous idol's limbs, 
So leave the idol grinning unconsumed, 
And save the fools to breed idolaters ? 
O mercy worthy of the licking hound 
That knows no future but its feeding-time ! 
Mercy has eyes that pierce the ages — sees 
From heights divine of the eternal purpose 



98 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Far-scattered consequence in its vast sum ; 

Chooses to save, but with illumined vision 

Sees that to save is greatly to destroy. 

'Tis so the Holy Inquisition sees : its wrath 

Is fed from the strong heart of wisest love. 

For love must needs make hatred. He who loves 

God and his law must hate the foes of God. 

And I have sinned in being merciful : 

Being slack in hate, I have been slack in love. 

{He takes the crucifix and holds it up before him.) 

Thou shuddering, bleeding, thirsting, dying God. 
Thou Man of Sorrows, scourged and bruised and 

torn, 
Suffering to save — wilt thou not judge the world ? 
This arm which held the children, this pale hand 
That gently touched the eyelids of the blind. 
And opened passive to the cruel nail, 
Shall one day stretch to leftward of thy throne, 
Charged with the power that makes the lightning 

strong, 
And hurl thy foes to everlasting hell. 
And thou, Immaculate Mother, Virgin mild, 
Thou sevenfold-pierced, thou pitying, pleading 

Queen, 
Shalt see and smile, while the black filthy souls 
Sink with foul weight to their eternal place, 
Purging the Holy Light. Yea, I have sinned 
And called it mercy. But I shrink no more. 
To-morrow morn this temptress shall be safe 
Under the Holy Inquisition's key. 
He thinks to wed her, and defy me then, 
She being shielded by our house's name. 
But he shall never wed her. I have said. 

The time is come. Exurge, Do?nine y 
Judica causam tuam. Let thy foes 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 99 

Be driven as the smoke before the wind, 
And melt like wax upon the furnace lip ! 



A large chamber richly furnished opening on a ter- 
race-garden, the trees visible through the win- 
dow in faint moonlight. Flowers hanging 
about the window, lit up by the tapers. The 
casket of jewels open on a table. The gold 
necklace lying near. Fedalma, splendidly 
dressed and adorned with pearls aud rubies, 
is walking up and down. 

So soft a night was never made for sleep, 

But for the waking of the finer sense 

To every murmuring and gentle sound, 

To subtlest odors, pulses, visitings 

That touch our frames with wings too delicate 

To be discerned amid the blare of day. 

( She pauses near the window to gather some 
jasmine : then walks again.) 

Surely these flowers keep happy watch — their 

breath 
Is the fond memory of the loving light. 
I often rue the hours I lose in sleep : 
It is a bliss too brief, only to see 
This glorious world, to hear the voice of love, 
To feel the touch, the breath of tenderness, 
And then to rest as from a spectacle. 
I need the curtained stillness of the night 
To live through all my happy hours again 
With more selection — cull them quite away 
From blemished moments. Then in loneliness 
The face that bent before me in the day 
Rises in its own light, more vivid seems 



TOO THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Painted upon the dark, and ceaseless glows 

With sweet solemnity of gazing love. 

Till like the heavenly blue it seems to grow 

Nearer, more kindred, and more cherishing, 

Mingling with all my being. Then the words, 

The tender low-toned words come back again, 

With repetition welcome as the chime 

Of softly hurrying brooks — 44 My only love — 

My love while life shall last — my own Fedalma !' 

Oh it is mine — the joy that once has been ! 

Poor eager hope is but a stammerer, 

Must listen dumbly to great memory, 

Who makes our bliss the sweeter by her telling. 

. {She pauses a moment musingly.') 
But that dumb hope is still a sleeping guard 
Whose quiet rhythmic breath saves me from 

dread 
In this fair paradise. For if the earth 
Broke off with flower-fringed edge, visibly sheer, 
Leaving no footing for my forward step 
But empty blackness . . . 

Nay, there is no fear — 
They will renew themselves, day and my joy. 
And all that past which is securely mine, 
Will be the hidden root that nourishes 
Our still unfolding, ever-ripening love ! 

( While she is uttering the last words , a little bird 
falls softly on the floor behind her ; she hears 
t/ie light sound of its fall, and turns round.) 

Did something enter ? . . . 

Yes, this little bird . . . 
(She lifts it.) 
Dead and yet warm ; 'twas seeking sanctuary, 
And died, perhaps of fright, at the altar foot. 
Stay, there is something tied beneath the wing ! 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. ioi 

A strip of linen, streaked with blood — what 

blood? 
The streaks are written words — are sent to me — 

God, art sent to me ! Dear child, Fedalma, 
Be brave, give no alarm — your Father conies ! 

(She lets the bird fall again.) 
My Father . . . comes . . . my Father . . . 
(She turns in quivering expectation toward the 
window. There is perfect stillness a few 
moments until Zarca appears at the win- 
dow. He enters quickly and noiselessly ; 
then stands still at his full height, and at 
a distance from Fedalma.) 

Fedalma (in a low, distinct tone of terror). 

It is he ! 

1 said his fate had laid its hold on mine. 

Zarca (advancing a step or two). 
You know, then, who I am ? 

Fedalma. 

The prisoner — 
He whom I saw in fetters — and this neck- 
lace. . . . 

Zarca. 
Was played with by your fingers when it hung 
About my neck, full fifteen years ago. 

Fedalma (looking at the necklace and handling 

it, then speaking, as if unconsciously). 
Full fifteen years ago ! 

Zarca. 

The very day 
I lost you, when you wore a tiny gown 
Of scarlet cloth with golden broidery : 



J 



102 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

'Twas clasped in front by coins — two golden 

coins. 
The one upon the left was split in two 
Across the king's head, right from brow to nape, 
A dent i' the middle nicking in the cheek. 
You see I know the little gown by heart. 

Fedalma (growing paler and more tremulous). 
Yes. It is true — I have the gown — the clasps — 
The braid — sore tarnished : — it is long ago ! 

Zarca. 
But yesterday to me ; for till to-day 
I saw you always as that little child. 
And when they took my necklace from me, still 
Your fingers played about it on my neck, 
And still those buds of fingers on your feet 
Caught in its meshes as you seemed to climb 
Up to my shoulder. You were not stolen all. 
You had a double life fed from my heart. . . . 

(Fedalma, letting fall the necklace, makes 
an impulsive movement toward him, with 
outstretched hands. ) 

The Gypsy father loves his children well. 

Fedalma (shrinking, trembling, and letting fall 
• her hands). 

How came it that you sought me — no — I mean 
How came it that you knew me — that you lost 
me? 

Zarca (standing perfectly still). 
Poor child ! I see — your father and his rags 
Are welcome as the piercing wintry wind 
Within this silken chamber. It is well. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 103 

I would not have a child who stooped to feign, 
And aped a sudden love. Better, true hate. 

Fed alma {yaising her eyes toward him y with c 
fiash of admiration y and looking at him fixedly). 

Father, how was it that we lost each other? 

Zarca. 

I lost you as a man may lose a gem 

Wherein he has compressed his total wealth, 

Or the right hand whose cunning makes him 

great : 
I lost you by a trivial accident. 
Marauding Spaniards, sweeping like a storm 
Over a spot within the Moorish bounds, 
Near where our camp lay, doubtless snatched you 

up, 
When Zind, your nurse, as she confessed, was 

urged 
By burning thirst to wander toward the stream, 
And leave you on the sand some paces off 
Playing with pebbles, while she dog-like lapped. 
'Twas so I lost you — never saw you more 
Until to-day I saw you dancing ! Saw 
The daughter of the Zincalo make sport 
For those who spit upon her people's name. 

Fedalma {vehemently). 

It was not sport. What if the world looked 

on? — 
I danced for joy — for love of all the world. 
But when you looked at me my joy was stabbed — 
Stabbed with your pain. I wondered . . . now 

I know . . . 
It was my father's pain. 



104 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

{She pauses a moment with eyes bent down- 
ward \ during which Zarca examines 
her face. Then she says quickly,) 
How were you sure 
At once I was your child ? 

Zarca. 

I had witness strong 
As any Cadi needs, before I saw you ! 
I fitted all my memories with the chat 
Of one named Juan — one whose rapid talk 
Showers like the blossoms from a light-twigged 

shrub, 
If you but cough beside it. I learned all 
The story of your Spanish nurture — all 
The promise of your fortune. When at last 
I fronted you, my little maid full-grown, 
Belief was turned to vision : then I saw 
That she whom Spaniards called the bright Fe- 

dalma — 
The little red-f rocked foundling three years old — 
Grown to such perfectness the Spanish Duke 
Had wooed her for his Duchess — was the child, 
Sole offspring of my flesh, that Lambra bore 
One hour before the Christian, hunting us, 
Hurried her on to death. Therefore I sought — 
Therefore I come to claim you — claim my child, 
Not from the Spaniard, not from him who robbed, 
But from herself. 

(Fedalm A has gradually approached close to 

Z ARC A, and with a low sob sinks on her 

knees before him. He stoops to kiss her 

brow } and lays his hands on her head.) 

Zarca {with solemn tenderness). 

Tl .en my child owns her father ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 105 

Fed alma. 

Father! yes. 
I will eat dust before I will deny 
The flesh I spring from. 

Zarca. 

There my daughter spoke. 
Away then with these rubies ! 

(He seizes t/ie circlet of rubies and flings it on 
the ground. Fed alma, starting from 
the ground with strong e motion , shrinks 
backward, ) 

Such a crown 
Is infamy around a Zincala's brow. 
It is her people's blood, decking her shame. 

Fedalma {after a moment, slowly and distinctly, 
as if accepting a doom.) 

Then ... I was born ... a Zincala ? 

Zarca. 

Of a blood 
Unmixed as virgin wine-juice. 

Fedalma. 

Of a race 
More outcast and despised than Moor or Jew ? 

Zarca. 

Yes : wanderers whom no God took knowledge 

of 
To give them laws, to fight for them, or blight 
Another race to make them ampler room ; 
Who have no Whence or Whither in their souls, 



Io6 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

No dimmest lore of glorious ancestors 
To make a common hearth for piety. 

Fedalma. 
A race that lives on prey as foxes do 
With stealthy, petty rapine : so despised, 
It is not persecuted, only spurned, 
Crushed underfoot, warred on by chance like rats, 
Or swarming flies, or reptiles of the sea 
Dragged in the net unsought, and flung far off 
To perish as they may ? 

Zarca. 

You paint us well. 
So abject are the men whose blood we share : 
Untutored, unbefriended, unendowed ; 
No favorites of heaven or of men. 
Therefore I cling to them ! Therefore no lure 
Shall draw me to disown them, or forsake 
The meagre wandering herd that lows for help 
And needs me for its guide, to seek my pasture 
Among the well-fed beeves that graze at will. 
Because our race has no great memories, 
I will so live, it shall remember me 
For deeds of such divine beneficence 
As rivers have, that teach men what is good 
By blessing them. I have been schooled — have 

caught 
Lore from the Hebrew, deftness from the 

Moor — 
Know the rich heritage, the milder life, 
Of nations fathered by a mighty Past ; 
But were our race accursed (as they who make 
Good luck a god count all unlucky men) 
I would espouse their curse sooner than take 
My gifts from brethren naked of all good, 
And lend them to the rich for usury. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 107 

(Fed ALMA again advances ■, and putting forth 
her right hand grasps Zarca's left. He 
places his other hand on her shoulder. 
They stand so, looking at each other.) 

Zarca. 
And you, my child ? are you of other mind, 
Choosing forgetfulness, hating the truth 
That says you are akin to needy men ? — 
Wishing your father were some Christian Duke, 
Who would hang Gypsies when their task was 

done, 
While you, his daughter, were not bound to 

care ? 

FEDALMA (in a troubled, eager voice). 
No, I should always care — I cared for you — 
For all, before I dreamed .... 

Zarca. 

Before you dreamed 
That you were born a Zincala — your flesh 
Stamped with your people's faith. 

Fed alma {bitterly). 

The Gypsies' faith ? 
Men say they have none. 

Zarca. 

Oh, it is a faith 
Taught by no priest, but by their beating hearts : 
Faith to each other : the fidelity 
Of fellow-wanderers in a desert place 
Who share the same dire thirst, and therefor© 

share 
The scanty water : the fidelity 
Of men whose pulses leap with kindred fire, 



Io8 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Who in the flash of eyes, the clasp of hands, 

The speech that even in lying tells the truth 

Of heritage inevitable as birth, 

Nay, in the silent bodily presence feel 

The mystic stirring of a common life 

Which makes the many one : fidelity 

To the consecrating oath our sponsor Fate 

Made through our infant breath when we were 

born 
The fellow-heirs of that small island, Life, 
Where we must dig and sow and reap with 

brothers. 
Fear thou that oath, my daughter — nay, not 

fear, 
But love it ; for the sanctity of oaths 
Lies not in lightning that avenges them, 
But in the injury wrought by broken bonds 
And in the garnered good of human trust. 
And you have sworn — even with your infant 

breath 
You too were pledged .... 

Fed ALMA {letting go Zarca's hand, and sinking 
backward on her knees \ with bent head, as if 
before some impending crushing weight). 

To what ? what have I sworn ? 

Zarca. 
To take the heirship of the Gypsy's child : 
The child of him who, being chief, will be 
The savior of his tribe, or if he fail 
Will choose to fail rather than basely win 
The prize of renegades. Nay, will not choose — 
Is there a choice for strong souls to be weak ? 
For men erect to crawl like hissing snakes ? 
I choose not — I am Zarca. Let him choose 
Who halts and wavers, having appetite 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



109 



To feed on garbage. You, my child— are you 
Halting and wavering ? 

Fed ALMA {raising her head). 

Say what is my task. 
Zarca. 

To be the angel of a homeless tribe : 

To help me bless a race taught by no prophet, 

And make their name, now but a badge of scorn, 

A glorious banner floating in their midst, 

Stirring the air they breathe with impulses 

Of generous pride, exalting fellowship 

Until it soars to magnanimity. 

I'll guide my brethren forth to their new land, 

Where they shall plant and sow and reap their 

own, 
Serving each other's needs, and so be spurred 
To skill in all the arts that succor life ; 
Where we may kindle our first altar-fire 
From settled hearths, and call our Holy Place 
The hearth that binds us in one family. 
That land awaits them : they await their chief — 
Me who am prisoned. All depends on you. 

Fed ALMA {rising to her full height \ and Uoking 

solemnly at Zarca). 
Father, your child is ready ! She will not 
Forsake her kindred : she will brave all scorn 
Sooner than scorn herself. Let Spaniards all, 
Christians, Jews, Moors, shoot out the lip and 

say, 
41 Lo, the first hero in a tribe of thieves." 
Is it not written so of them ? They, too, 
Were slaves, lost, wandering, sunk beneath a 

curse, 
Till Moses, Christ, and Mahomet were born, 
Till beings lonely in their greatness lived, 



HO THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And lived to save their people. Father, listen. 
The Duke to-morrow weds me secretly : 
But straight he will present me as his wife 
To all his household, cavaliers and dames 
And noble pages. Then I will declare 
Before them all, " I am his daughter, his, 
The Gypsy's, owner of this golden badge.' 
Then I shall win your freedom ; then the Duke — 
Why, he will be your son ! — will send you forth 
With aid and honors. Then, before all eyes 
I'll clasp this badge on you, and lift my brow 
For you to kiss it, saying by that sign, 
* 4 I glory in my father." This, to-morrow. 

Zarca. 
A woman's dream — who thinks by smiling well 
To ripen figs in frost. What ! marry first, 
And then proclaim your birth? Enslave your- 
self 
To use your freedom ? Share another's name, 
Then treat it as you will ? How will that tune 
Ring in your bridegroom's ears — that sudden 

song 
Of triumph in your Gypsy father ? 

FEDALMA {discouraged). 

Nay. 
I meant not so. We marry hastily — 
Yet there is time — there will be : — in less space 
Than he can take to look at me, I'll speak 
And tell him all. Oh, I am not afraid ! 
His love for me is stronger than all hate : 
Nay, stronger than my love, which cannot sway 
Demons that haunt me — tempt me to rebel. 
Were he Fedalma and I Silva, he 
Could love confession, prayers, and tonsured 
monks 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. \ 1 1 

If my soul craved them. He will never hate 
The race that bore him what he loves the most. 
I shall but do more strongly what I will, 
Having his will to help me. And to-morrow. 
Father, as surely as this heart shall beat. 
You — every Gypsy chained, shall be set free. 

ZARCA {coming nearer io her, and laying his 

hand on her shoulder). 
Too late, too poor a service that, my child ! 
Not so the woman who would save her tribe 
Must help its heroes — not by wordy breath. 
By easy prayers strong in a lover's ear. 
By showering wreaths and sweets and wafted 

kisses, 
And then, when all the smiling work is done, 
Turning to rest upon her down again, 
And whisper languid pity for her race 
Upon the bosom of her alien spouse. 
Not to such petty mercies as can fall 
'Twixt stitch and stitch of silken broidery, 
Such miracles of mitred saints who pause 
Beneath their gilded canopy to heal 
A man sun-stricken : not to such trim merit 
As soils its dainty shoes for charity 
And simpers meekly at the pious stain, 
But never trod with naked bleeding feet 
Where no man praised it, and where no Church 

blessed : 
Not to such almsdeeds fit for holidays 
Were you, my daughter, consecrated — bound 
By laws that, breaking, you will dip your bread 
In murdered brother's blood and call it sw<;et — 
When you were born beneath the dark man's 

tent, 
And lifted up in sight of all your tribe, 
Who greeted you with shouts of loyal joy. 



112 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Sole offspring of the chief in whom they trust 

As in the oft-tried never-failing flint 

They strike their fire from. Other work is yours. 

Fedalma. 

What work ? — what is it that you ask of me ? 

Zarca. 

A work as pregnant as the act of men 

Who set their ships aflame and spring to land, 

A fatal deed .... 

Fedalma. 

Stay ! never utter it 1 
If it can part my lot from his whose love 
Has chosen me. Talk not of oaths, of birth, 
Of men as numerous as the dim white stars — 
As cold and distant, too, for my heart's pulse. 
No ills on earth, though you should count them 

U P. 
With grains to make a mountain, can outweigh 

For me, his ill who is my supreme love. 

All sorrows else are but imagined flames, 

Making me shudder at an unfelt smart ; 

But his imagined sorrow is a fire 

That scorches me. 

Zarca. 

I know, I know it well — 

The first young passionate wail of spirits called 

To some great destiny. In vain, my daughter ! 

Lay the young eagle in what nest you will, 

The cry and swoop of eagles overhead 

Vibrate prophetic in its kindred frame. 

And make it spread its wings and poise itself 

For the eagle's flight. Hear what you have 

to do. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



**3 



(Fedalma stands half averted, as if she 
dreaded the effect of his looks and 7uords.) 
My comrades even now file off their chains 
In a low turret by the battlements, 
Where we were locked with slight and sleepy 

guard — 
We who had files hid in our shaggy hair, 
And possible ropes that waited but our will 
In half our garments. Oh, the Moorish blood 
Runs thick and warm to us, though thinned by 

chrism. 
I found a friend among our jailers — one 
Who loves the Gypsy as the Moor's ally. 
I know the secrets of this fortress. Listen. 
Hard by yon terrace is a narrow stair, 
Cut in the living rock, and at one point 
In its slow straggling course it branches off 
Toward a low wooden door, that art has bossed 
To such unevenness, it seems one piece 
With the rough-hewn rock. Open that door, it 

leads 
Through a broad passage burrowed under- 
ground. 
A good half-mile out to the open plain : 
Made for escape, in dire extremity 
From siege or burning, of the house's wealth 
In women or in gold. To find that door 
Needs one who knows the number of the steps 
Just to the turning-point ; to open it, 
Needs one who knows the secret of the bolt. 
You have that secret : you will ope that door, 
And fly with us. 

Fedalma (receding a little^ and gathering herself 
np in an attitude of resolve opposite to Zarca), 
No, I will never fly ! 
Never forsake that chief half of my soul 



U4 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Where lies my love. I swear to set you free. 

&sk for no more ; it is not possible. 

Father, my soul is not too base to ring 

At touch of your great thoughts ; nay, in my 

blood 
There streams the sense unspeakable of kind, 
As leopard feels at ease with leopard. But — 
Look at these hands ! You say when they wen. 

little 
They played about the gold upon your neck. 
I do believe it, for their tiny pulse 
Made record of it in the inmost coil 
Of growing memory. But see them now ! 
Oh, they have made fresh record - s twined them- 
selves 
With other throbbing hands whose pulses feed 
Not memories only but a blended life — 
Life that will bleed to death if it be severed. 
Have pity on me, father ! Wait the morning ; 
Say you will wait the morning. I will win 
Your freedom openly : you shall go forth 
With aid and honors. Silva will deny 
Nought to my asking .... 

Zarca {with contemptuous decision). 

Till you ask him aught 
Wherein he is powerless. Soldiers even now 
Murmur against him that he risks the town, 
And forfeits all the prizes of a foray 
To get his bridal pleasure with a bride 
Too low for him. They'll murmur more and 

louder 
If captives of our pith and sinew, fit 
For all the work the Spaniard hates, are freed — 
Now, too, when Spanish hands are scanty 

What, 
Turn Gypsies loose instead of hanging them ! 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



"5 



'Tis flat against the edict. Nay, perchance 
Murmurs aloud may turn to silent threats 
Of some well-sharpened dagger ; for your Duke 
Has to his heir a pious cousin, who deems 
The Cross were better served if he were Duke. 
Such good you'll work your lover by your 
prayers. 

Fedalma. 

Then, I will free you now ! You shall be safe, 
Nor he be blamed, save for his love to me. 
I will declare what I have done : the deed 
May put our marriage off ... . 

Zarca. 

Ay, till the time 
When you shall be a queen in Africa, 
And he be prince enough to sue for you. 
You cannot free us and come back to him. 

Fedalma. 
And why ? 

Zarca. 

I would compel you to go forth. 

Fedalma. 
You tell me that ? 

Zarca. 

Yes, for I'd have you choose ; 
Though, being of the blood you are — my blood — 
You have no right to choose. 

Fedalma. 

I only owe 
A daughter's debt ; I was not born a slave. 



Il6 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

ZARCA. 
No, not a slave ; but you were born to reign. 
'Tis a compulsion of a higher sort, 
Whose fetters are the net invisible 
That hold all life together. Royal deeds 
May make long destinies for multitudes. 
And you are called to do them. You belong 
Not to the petty round of circumstance 
That makes a woman's lot, but to your tribe, 
Who trust in me and in my blood with trust 
That men call blind ; but it is only blind 
As unyeaned reason is, that grows and stirs 
Within the womb of superstition. 

Fedalma. 

No! 
I belong to him who loves me — whom I love — 
Who chose me — whom I chose — to whom I 

pledged 
A woman's truth. And that is nature too, 
Issuing a fresher law than laws of birth. 

Zarca. 

Unmake yourself, then, from a Zincala — 
Unmake yourself from being child of mine ! 
Take holy water, cross your dark skin white ; 
Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks ; 
Walk mincingly, and smirk, and twitch youf 

robe : 
Unmake yourself — doff all the eagle plumes 
And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips 
Upon a Spaniard's thumb, at will of his 
That you should prattle o'er his words again ! 
Get a small heart that flutters at the smiles 
Of that plump penitent, that greedy saint 
Who breaks all treaties in the name of God, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 117 

Saves souls by confiscation, sends to heaven 
The altar-fumes of burning heretics, 
And chaffers with the Levite for the gold ; 
Holds Gypsies beasts unfit for sacrifice, 
So sweeps them out like worms alive or dead. 
Go, trail your gold and velvet in her court ! — 
A conscious Zincala, smile at your rare luck, 
While half your brethren .... 

Fedalma. 

I am not so vile ! 
It is not to such mockeries that I cling, 
Not to the flaring tow of gala-lights ; 
It is to him — my love — the face of day. 

Zarca. 

What, will you part him from the air he breathes, 
Never inhale with him although you kiss him ? 
Will you adopt a soul without its thoughts, 
Or grasp a life apart from flesh and blood ? 
Till then you cannot wed a Spanish Duke 
And not wed shame at mention of your race, 
And not wed hardness to their miseries- 
Nay, not wed murder. Would you save my life 
Yet stab my purpose ? maim my every limb, 
Put out my eyes, and turn me loose to feed c" 
Is that salvation ? rather drink my blood. 
That child of mine who weds my enemy — 
Adores a God who took no heed of Gypsies — 
Forsakes her people, leaves their poverty 
To join the luckier crowd that mocks their woes— 
That child of mine is doubly murderess, 
Murdering her father's hope, her people's trust. 
Such draughts are mingled in your cup of love ! 
And when you have become a thing so poor, 
Your life is all a fashion without law 
Save frail conjecture of a changing wish, 



Il8 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Your worshipped sun, your smiling face of day, 
Will turn to cloudiness, and you will shiver 
In your thin finery of vain desire. 
Men call his passion madness ; and he, too. 
May learn to think it madness : 'tis a thought 
Of ducal sanity. 

Fed alma. 
No, he is true ! 
And if I part from him I part from joy. 
Oh, it was morning with us — I seemed young. 
But now I know I am an aged sorrow — 
My people's sorrow. Father, since I am yours—* 
Since I must walk an unslain sacrifice, 
Carrying the knife within me, quivering — 
Put cords upon me, drag me to the doom 
My birth has laid upon me. See, I kneel : 
I cannot will to go. 

Zarca. 
Will then to stay ! 
Say you will take your better, painted such 
By blind desire, and choose the hideous worse 
For thousands who were happier but for you. 
My thirty followers are assembled now 
Without this terrace : I your father wait 
That you may lead us forth to liberty — 
Restore me to my tribe — five hundred men 
Whom I alone can save, alone can rule, 
And plant them as a mighty nation's seed. 
Why, vagabonds who clustered round one man, 
Their voice of God, their prophet and their king 
Twice grew to empire on the teeming shores 
Of Africa, and sent new royalties 
To feed afresh the Arab sway in Spain. 
My vagabonds are a seed more generous, 
Quick as the serpent, loving as the hound. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 119 

And beautiful as disinherited gods. 
They have a promised land beyond the sea : 
There I may lead them, raise my standard, call 
The wandering Zincali to that new home, 
And make a nation — bring light, order, law, 
Instead of chaos. You, my only heir, 
Are called to reign for me when I am gone. 
Now choose your deed : to save or to destroy. 
You, a born Zincaia, you, fortunate 
Above your fellows— you who hold a curse 
Or blessing in the hollow of your hand — 
Say you will loose that hand from fellowship, 
Let go the rescuing rope, hurl all the tribes, 
Children and countless beings yet to^ome, 
Down from the upward path of light and joy, 
Back to the dark and marshy wilderness 
Where life is nought but blind tenacity 
Of that which is. Say you will curse your race ! 

Fedalma {rising and stretching out her arms in 

deprecation). 
No, no — I will not say it— I will go ! 
Father, I choose ! I will not take a heaven 
Haunted by shrieks of far-off misery. 
This deed and I have ripened with the hours : 
It is a part of me — a wakened thought 
That, rising like a giant, masters me, 
And grows into a doom. O mother life, 
That seemed to nourish me so tenderly, 
Even in the womb you vowed me to the fire, 
Hung on my soul the burden of men's hopes, 
And pledged me to redeem ! — I'll pay the debt. 
You gave me strength that I should pour it all 
Into this anguish. I can never shrink 
Back into bliss — my heart has grown too big 
With things that might be. Father, I will go. 
I will strip off these gems. Some happier bride 



120 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Shall wear them, since Fedalma would be dowered 
With nought but curses, dowered with misery 
Of men — of women, who have hearts to bleed 
As hers is bleeding. 

( She sinks on a seat, and begins to take ojf 
her jewels.) 

Now, good gems, we part. 
Speak of me always tenderly to Silva. 

(She pauses, turning to Z ARC A.) 

O father, will the women of our tribe 

Suffer as I do, in the years to come 

When you have made them great in Africa ? 

Redeemed from ignorant ills only to feel 

A conscious woe ? Then — is it worth the pains ? 

Were it not better when we reach that shore 

To raise a funeral -pile and perish all. 

So closing up a myriad avenues 

To misery yet unwrought ? My soul is faint — 

Will these sharp pangs buy any certain good ? 

Zarca. 
Nay, never falter : no great deed is done 
By falterers who ask for certainty. 
No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, 
The undivided will to seek the good : 
'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings 
A human music from the indifferent air. 
The greatest gift the hero leaves his race 
Is to have been a hero. Say we fail ! — 
We feed the high tradition of the world 
And leave our spirit in our children's breasts. 

Fedalma {unclasping her jewelled belt, a7id throw* 

ing it doivri). 
Yes, say that we shall fail ! I will not count 
On aught but being faithful. I will take 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 121 

This yearning self of mine and strangle it. 
I will not be half-hearted : never yet 
Fedalma did aught with a wavering soul. 
Die, my young joy — die, all my hungry hopes — 
The milk you cry for from the breast of life 
Is thick with curses. Oh, all fatness here 
Snatches its meat from leanness — feeds on 

graves. 
I will seek nothing but to shun base joy. 
The saints were cowards who stood by to see 
Christ crucified : they should have flung them- 
selves 
Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain — 
The grandest death, to die in vain— for love 
Greater than sways the forces of the world ! 
That death shall be my bridegroom. I will wed 
The curse that blights my people. Father, come \ 

Zarca. 
No curse has fallen on us till we cease 
To help each other. You, if you are false 
To that first fellowship, lay on the curse. 
But write now to the Spaniard : briefly say 
That I, your father, came ; that you obeyed 
The fate which made you Zincala, as his fate 
Made him a Spanish duke and Christian knight. 
He must not think . . . 

Fedalma. 

Yes, I will write, but he — 
Oh, he would know it — he would never think 
The chain that dragged me from him could be 

aught 
But scorching iron entering in my soul. 

{She writes.) 
Silva, sole love — he came — my father came. 
I am the daughter of the Gypsy chief 



122 THE SPANISH GYPSY, 

Who means to be the Saviour of our tribe. 
He calls on me to live for his great end. 
To live ? nay, die for it. Fedalma dies 
In leaving Silva : all that lives henceforth 
Is the poor Zincala, (She rises.) 

Father, now I go 
To wed my people's lot. 

Zarca. 

To wed a crown. 
Our people's lowly lot we will make royal — 
Give it a country, homes, and monuments 
Held sacred through the lofty memories 
That we shall leave behind us. Come, my 
Queen ! 

Fedalma. 

Stay, my betrothal ring ! — one kiss — farewell ! 
O love, you were my crown. No other crown 
Is aught but thorns on my poor woman's brow. 



BOOK II. 



Silva was marching homeward while the moon 
Still shed mild brightness like the far-off hope 
Of those pale virgin lives that wait and pray. 
The stars thin-scattered made the heavens large, 
Bending in slow procession ; in the east 
Emergent from the dark waves of the hills. 
Seeming a little sister of the moon. 
Glowed Venus all unquenched. Silva, in haste. 
Exultant and yet anxious, urged his troop 
To quick and quicker march : he had delight 
In forward stretching shadows, in the gleams 
That travelled on the armor of the van. 
And in the many-hoofed sound : in all that told 
Of hurrying movement to o'ertake his thought 
Already in Bedmar, close to Fedalma, 
Leading her forth a wedded bride, fast vowed, 
Defying Father Isidor. His glance 
Took in with much content the priest who rode 
Firm in his saddle, stalwart and broad-backed, 
Crisp-curled, and comfortably secular, 
Right in the front of him. But by degrees 
Stealthily faint, disturbing with slow loss 
That showed not yet full promise of a gain, 
The light was changing, and the watch intense 
Of moon and stars seemed weary, shivering : 
The sharp white brightness passed from off the 

rocks 
Carrying the shadows : beauteous Night lay dead 
Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star 



124 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Sickened and shrank. The troop was winding 

now 
Upward to where a pass between the peaks 
Seemed like an opened gate — to Silva seemed 
An outer-gate of heaven, for through that pass 
They entered his own valley, near Bedmar. 
Sudden within the pass a horseman rose, 
One instant dark upon the banner pale 
Of rock-cut sky, the next in motion swift 
With hat and plume high shaken— ominous. 
Silva had dreamed his future, and the dream 
Held not this messenger. A minute more — 
It was his friend Don Alvar whom he saw 
Reining his horse up, face to face with him, 
Sad as the twilight, all his clothes ill-girt — 
As if he had been roused to see one die, 
And brought the news to him whom death had 

robbed. 
Silva believed he saw the worse — the town 
Stormed by the infidel — or, could it be 
Fedalma dragged ? — no, there was not yet time. 
But with a marble face, he only said, 
44 What evil, Alvar ?" 

44 What this paper speaks.* 1 
It was Fedalma's letter folded close 
And mute as yet for Silva, But his friend 
Keeping it still sharp-pinched against his breast, 
44 It will smite hard, my lord : a private grief. 
I would not have you pause to read it here. 
Let us ride on — we use the moments best, 
Reaching the town with speed. The smaller ill 
Is that our Gypsy prisoners have escaped." 
44 No more. Give me the paper — nay, I know — 
'Twill make no difference. Bid them march on 

faster." 
Silva pushed forward — held the paper crushed 
Close in his right. 44 They have imprisoned her " 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 125 

He said to Alvar in low, hard-cut tones, 
Like a dream-speech of slumbering revenge. 
'* No — when they came to fetch her she was gone." 
Swift as the right touch on a spring, that word 
Made Silva read the letter. She was gone ! 
But not into locked darkness — only gone 
Into free air — where he might find her yet. 
The bitter loss had triumph in it — what ! 
They would have seized her with their holy claws, 
The Prior's sweet morsel of despotic hate 
Was snatched from off his lips. This misery 
Had yet a taste of joy. 

But she was gone ! 
The sun had risen, and in the castle walls 
The light grew strong and stronger. Silva 

walked 
Through the long corridor where dimness yet 
Cherished a lingering, flickering, dying hope : 
Fedalma still was there — he could not see 
The vacant place that once her presence filled. 
Can we believe that the dear dead are gone ? 
Love in sad weeds forgets the funeral day, 
Opens the chamber door and almost smiles — 
Then sees the sunbeams pierce athwart the bed 
Where the pale face is not. So Silva's joy, 
Like the sweet habit of caressing hands 
That seek the memory of another hand, 
Still lived on fitfully in spite of words. 
And, numbing thought with vague illusion, dulled 
The slow and steadfast beat of certainty. 
But in the rooms inexorable light 
Streamed through the opened window where she 

fled, 
Streamed on the belt and coronet thrown down — 
Mute witnesses — sought out the typic ring 
That sparkled on the crimson, solitary, 
Wounding him like a word. O hateful light ! 



126 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

It filled the chambers with her absence, glared 
On all the motionless things her hand had 

touched, 
Motionless all — save where old Inez lay- 
Sunk on the floor holding her rosary, 
Making its shadow tremble with her fear. 
And Silva passed her by because she grieved : 
It was the lute, the gems, the pictured heads, 
He longed to crush, because they made no sign 
But of insistence that she was not there, 
She who had filled his sight and hidden them. 
He went forth on the terrace tow'rd the stairs, 
Saw the rained petals of the cistus flowers 
Crushed by large feet ; but on one shady spot 
Far down the steps, where dampness made a 

home, 
He saw a footprint delicate-slippered, small, 
So dear to him, he searched for sister-prints, 
Searched in the rock-hewn passage with a lamp 
For other trace of her, and found a glove ; 
But not Fedalma's. It was Juan's glove, 
Tasselled, perfumed, embroidered with his name, 
A gift of dames. Then Juan, too, was gone ? 
Full-mouthed conjecture, hurrying through the 

town, 
Had spread the tale already : it was he 
That helped the Gypsies' flight. He talked and 

sang 
Of nothing but the Gypsies and Fedalma. 
He drew the threads together, wove the plan ; 
Had lingered out by moonlight, had been seen 
Strolling, as was his wont, within the walls, 
Humming his ditties. So Don Alvar told, 
Conveying outside rumor. But the Duke, 
Making of haughtiness a visor closed, 
Would show no agitated front in quest 
Of small disclosures. What her writing bore 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 127 

Had been enough. He knew that she was gone, 
Knew why. 

" The Duke," some said, "will send a force, 
Retake the prisoners, and bring back his bride." 
But others, winking, '* Nay, her wedding dress 
Would be the san-benito. 'Tis a fight 
Between the Duke and Prior. Wise bets will 

choose 
The churchman : he's the iron, and the 

Duke ..." 
" Is a fine piece of pottery," said mine host, 
Softening the sarcasm with a bland regret. 

There was the thread that in the new-made knot 
Of obstinate circumstance seemed hardest drawn, 
Vexed most the sense of Silva, in these hours 
Of fresh and angry pain — there, in that fight 
Against a foe whose sword was magical, 
His shield invisible terrors — against a foe 
Who stood as if upon the smoking mount 
Ordaining plagues. All else, Fedalma's flight, 
The father's claim, her Gypsy birth disclosed, 
Were momentary crosses, hindrances 
A Spanish noble might despise. This Chief 
Might still be treated with, would not refuse 
A proffered ransom, which would better serve 
Gypsy prosperity, give him more power 
Over his tribe, than any fatherhood : 
Nay, all the father in him must plead loud 
For marriage of his daughter where she loved — 
Her love being placed so high and lustrously. 
The Gypsy chieftain had foreseen a price 
That would be paid him for his daughter's 

dower — 
Might soon give signs. Oh, all his purpose lay 
Face upward. Silva here felt strong, and smiled. 
What could a Spanish noble not command ? 



128 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

He only helped the Queen, because he chose ; 
Could war on Spaniards, and could spare the 

Moor ; 
Buy justice, or defeat it — if he would : 
Was loyal, not from weakness but from strength 
Of high resolve to use his birthright well. 
For nobles too are gods, like emperors, 
Accept perforce their own divinity, 
And wonder at the virtue of their touch, 
Till obstinate resistance shakes their creed, 
Shattering that self whose wholeness is not 

rounded 
Save in the plastic souls of other men. 
Don Silva had been suckled in that creed 
(A high-taught speculative noble else), 
Held it absurd as foolish argument 
If any failed in deference, was too proud 
Not to be courteous to so poor a knave 
As one who knew not necessary truths 
Of birth and dues of rank ; but cross his will, 
The miracle-working will, his rage leaped out 
As by a right divine to rage more fatal 
Than a mere mortal man's. And now that will 
Had met a stronger adversary — strong 
As awful ghosts are whom we cannot touch, 
While they clutch us, subtly as poisoned air, 
In deep-laid fibres of inherited fear 
That lie below all courage. 

Silva said, 
'* She is not lost to me, might still be mine 
But for the Inquisition — the dire hand 
That waits to clutch her with a hideous grasp 
Not passionate, human, living, but a grasp 
As in the death-throe when the human soul 
Departs and leaves force unrelenting, locked. 
Not to be loosened save by slow decay 
That frets the universe. Father Isidor 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



129 



Has willed it so : his phial dropped the oil 
To catch the air-borne motes of idle slander ; 
He fed the fascinated gaze that clung 
Round all her movements, frank as growths of 

spring, 
With the new hateful interest of suspicion. 
What barrier is this Gypsy ? a mere gate 
I'll find the key for. The one barrier, 
The tightening cord that winds about my limbs, 
Is this kind uncle, this imperious saint, 
He who will save me, guard me from myself. 
And he can work his will : I have no help 
Save reptile secrecy, and no revenge 
Save that I will do what he schemes to hinder. 
Ay, secrecy, and disobedience — these 
No tyranny can master. Disobey ! 
You may divide the universe with God, 
Keeping your will unbent, and hold a world 
Where He is not supreme. The Prior shall know 

it! 
His will shall breed resistance : he shall do 
The thing he would not, further what he hates 
By hardening my resolve." 

But 'neath this speech — 
Defiant, hectoring, the more passionate voice 
Of many-blended consciousness — there breathed 
Murmurs of doubt, the weakness of a self 
That is not one ; denies and yet believes ; 
Protests with passion, " This is natural" — 
Yet owns the other still were truer, better, 
Could nature follow it : a self disturbed 
By budding growths of reason premature 
That breed disease. With all his outflung rage 
Silva half shrank before the steadfast man 
Whose life was one compacted whole, a realm 
Where the rule changed not, and the law was 

strong. 



13° 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



Then that reluctant homage stirred new hate. 
And gave rebellion an intenser will. 

But soon this inward strife the slow-paced hour* 

Slackened ; and the soul sank with hunger-pangs 

Hunger of love. Debate was swept right down 

By certainty of loss intolerable. 

A little loss ! only a dark-tressed maid 

Who had no heritage save her beauteous being ! 

But in the candor of her virgin eyes 

Saying, I love ; and in the mystic charm 

Of her dear presence, Silva found a heaven 

Where faith and hope were drowned as stars in 

day. 
Fedalma there, each momentary Now 
Seemed a whole blest existence, a full cup 
That, flowing over, asked no pouring hand 
From past to future. All the world was hers. 
Splendor was but the herald trumpet-note 
Of her imperial coming : penury 
Vanished before her as before a gem, 
The pledge of treasuries. Fedalma there, 
He thought all loveliness was lovelier, 
She crowning it : all goodness credible, 
Because of that great trust her goodness bred. 
For the strong current of the passionate love 
Which urged his life tow'rd hers, like urgent floods 
That hurry through the various-mingled earth, 
Carried within its stream all qualities 
Of what it penetrated, and made love 
Only another name, as Silva was, 
For the whole man that breathed within his frame. 
And she was gone. Well, goddesses will go ; 
But for a noble there were mortals left 
Shaped just like goddesses — O hateful sweet ! 
O impudent pleasure that should dare to front 
With vulgar visage memories divine ! 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



131 



The noble's birthright of miraculous will 

Turning / would to must be^ spurning all 

Offered as substitute for what it chose, 

Tightened and fixed in strain irrevocable 

The passionate selection of that love 

Which came not first but as all-conquering last. 

Great Love has many attributes, and shrines 

For varied worship, but his force divine 

Shows most its many-named fulness in the man 

Whose nature multitudinously mixed — 

Each ardent impulse grappling with a thought—- 

Resists all easy gladness, all content 

Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul 

Flooded with consciousness of good that is 

Finds life one bounteous answer. So it was 

In Silva's nature, Love had mastery there, 

Not as a holiday ruler, but as one 

Who quells a tumult in a day of dread, 

A welcomed despot. 

O all comforters, 
All soothing things that bring mild ecstasy, 
Came with her coming, in her presence lived. 
Spring afternoons, when delicate shadows fall 
Pencilled upon the grass ; high summer morns 
When white light rains upon the quiet sea 
And corn-fields flush with ripeness ; odors soft- 
Dumb vagrant bliss that seems to seek a home 
And find it deep within, 'mid stirrings vague 
Of far-off moments when our life was fresh ; 
All sweetly-tempered music, gentle change 
Of sound, form, color, as on wild lagoons 
At sunset when from black far-floating prows 
Comes a clear wafted song ; all exquisite joy 
Of a subdued desire, like some strong stream 
Made placid in the fulness of a lake — 
All came with her sweet presence, for she brought 
The love supreme which gathers to its realm 



132 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

All powers of loving. Subtle nature's hand 
Waked with a touch the far-linked harmonies 
In her own manifold work. Fedalma there, 
Fastidiousness became the prelude fine 
For full contentment ; and young melancholy, 
Lost for its origin, seemed but the pain 
Of waiting for that perfect happiness. 
The happiness was gone 1 

He sate alone, 
Hating companionship that was not hers ; 
Felt bruised with hopeless longing ; drank, as 

wine, 
Illusions of what had been, would have been ; 
Weary with anger and a strained resolve, 
Sought passive happiness in waking dreams. 
It has been so with rulers, emperors, 
Nay, sages who held secrets of great Time, 
Sharing his hoary and beneficent life — 
Men who sate throned among the multitudes — 
They have sore sickened at the loss of one. 
Silva sat lonely in her chamber, leaned 
Where she had leaned, to feel the evening breath 
Shed from the orange trees ; when suddenly 
His grief was echoed in a sad young voice 
Far and yet near, brought by aerial wings. 

The world is great : the birds all fly from me. 
The stars are golden fruit upon a tree 
All out of reach : my little sister went, 
And I am lonely. 

The world is great : I h ied to mount the hill 
Above the pines \ where the light lies so still, 
But it rose higher : little Lisa went, 
And J am lonely. 

The world is great : the wind comes rushing by t 
I wonder where it comes from ; sea-birds cry 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 133 

And hurt my heart : my little sister %vent, 
And I am lonely. 

The world is great : the people laugh and talk. 
And make loud holiday : how fast they walk ! 
fm lame, they push me : little Lisa went, 
And I am lonely. 

'Twas Pablo, like the wounded spirit of song 
Pouring melodious pain to cheat the hour 
For idle soldiers in the castle court. 
Dreamily Silva heard and hardly felt 
The song was outward, rather felt it part 
Of his own aching, like the lingering day, 
Or slow and mournful cadence of the bell. 
But when the voice had ceased he longed for it, 
And fretted at the pause, as memory frets 
When words that made its body fall away 
And leave it yearning dumbly. Silva then 
Bethought him whence the voice came, framed 

perforce 
Some outward image of a life not his 
That made a sorrowful centre to the world : 
A boy lame, melancholy-eyed, who bore 
A viol — yes, that very child he saw 
This morning eating roots by the gateway — saw 
As one fresh-ruined sees and spells a name 
And knows not what he does, yet finds it writ 
Full in the inner record. Hark, again ! 
The voice and viol. Silva called his thought 
To guide his ear and track the travelling sound, 

O bird that used to press 
Thy head against my cheek 
With touch that seemed to speak 

And ask a tender "yes " — 

Ay de mi y my bird I 



134 THE SPANISH: GYPSY. 

O tender downy breast 

A nd warmly beating hearty 
That beating seemed a part 
Of me who gave it rest — 

Ay de mi, my bird! 

The western court ! The singer might be seen 
From the upper gallery : quick the Duke was 

there 
Looking upon the court as on a stage. 
Men eased of armor, stretched upon the ground, 
Gambling by snatches ; shepherds from the hills 
Who brought their bleating friends for slaughter ; 

grooms 
Shouldering loose harness ; leather-aproned 

smiths, 
Traders with wares, green-suited serving-men, 
Made a round audience ; and in their midst 
Stood little Pablo, pouring forth his song, 
Just as the Duke had pictured. But the song 
Was strangely companied by Roldan's play 
With the swift gleaming balls, and now was 

crushed 
By peals of laughter at grave Annibal, 
Who carrying stick and purse o'erturned the 

pence 
Making mistake by rule. Silva had thought 
To melt hard bitter grief by fellowship 
With the world-sorrow trembling in his ear 
In Pablo's voice ; had meant to give command 
For the boy's presence ; but this company, 
This mountebank and monkey, must be — stay ! 
Not be excepted — must be ordered too 
Into his private presence ; they had brought 
Suggestion of a ready shapen tool 
To cut a path between his helpless wish 
And what it imaged. A ready shapen tool ! 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 135 

A spy, an envoy whom he might despatch 

In unsuspected secrecy, to find 

The Gypsies' refuge so that none beside 

Might learn it. And this juggler could be 

bribed, 
Would have no fear of Moors — for who would 

kill 
Dancers and monkeys ? — could pretend a journey 
Back to his home, leaving his boy the while 
To please the Duke with song. Without such 

chance — 
An envoy cheap and secret as a mole 
Who could go scatheless, come back for his pay 
And vanish straight, tied by no neighborhood — 
Without such chance as this poor juggler brought, 
Finding Fedalma was betraying her. 

Short interval betwixt the thought and deed. 
Roldan was called to private audience 
With Annibal and Pablo. All the world 
(By which I mean the score or two who heard) 
Shrugged high their shoulders, and supposed the 

Duke 
Would fain beguile the evening and replace 
His lacking happiness, as was the right 
Of nobles, who could pay for any cure, 
And wore nought broken, save a broken limb. 
In truth, at first, the Duke bade Pablo sing, 
But, while he sang, called Roldan wide apart, 
And told him of a mission secret, brief — 
A quest which well performed might earn much 

gold, 
But, if betrayed, another sort of pay. 
Roldan was ready ; 4 ' wished above all for gold 
And never wished to speak ; had worked enough 
At wagging his old tongue and chiming jokes ; 
Thought it was others' turn to play the fool. 



136 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Give him but pence enough, no rabbit, sirs, 
Would eat and stare and be more dumb than 

he. 
Give him his orders." 

They were given straight ; 
Gold for the journey, and to buy a mule 
Outside the gates through which he was to pass 
Afoot and carelessly. The boy would stay 
Within the castle, at the Duke's command, 
And must have nought but ignorance to betray 
For threats or coaxing. Once the quest per- 
formed. 
The news delivered with some pledge of truth 
Safe to the Duke, the juggler should go forth, 
A fortune in his girdle, take his boy 
And settle firm as any planted tree 
In fair Valencia, never more to roam. 
" Good ! good ! most worthy of a great hidalgo ! 
And Roldan was the man ! But Annibal — 
A monkey like no other, though morose 
In private character, yet full of tricks — 
'Twere hard to carry him, yet harder still 
To leave the boy and him in company 
And free to slip away. The boy was wild 
And shy as mountain kid ; once hid himself 
And tried to run away ; and Annibal, 
Who always took the lad's side (he was small, 
And they were nearer of a size, and, sirs, 
Your monkey has a spite against us men 
For being bigger) — Annibal went toe. 
Would hardly know himself, were he to lose 
Both boy and monkey — and 'twas property, 
The trouble he had put in Annibal. 
He didn't choose another man should beat 
His boy and monkey. If they ran away 
Some man would snap them up, and square 
himself 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 137 

And say they were his goods — he'd taught them 

— no ! 
He Roldan had no mind another man 
Should fatten by his monkey, and the boy 
Should not be kicked by any pair of sticks 
Calling himself a juggler." . . . 

But the Duke, 
Tired of that hammering, signed that it should 

cease ; 
Bade Roldan quit all fears — the boy and ape 
Should be safe lodged in Abderahman's tower, 
In keeping of the great physician there, 
The Duke's most special confidant and friend. 
One skilled in taming brutes, and always kind. 
The Duke himself this eve would see them 

lodged. 
Roldan must go — spend no more words — but go. 



The Astrologers Study. 

A room high up in Abderahman's tower, 
A window open to the still warm eve, 
And the bright disk of royal Jupiter. 
Lamps burning low make little atmospheres 
Of light amid the dimness ; here and there 
Show books and phials, stones and instruments. 
In carved dark-oaken chair, unpillowed, sleeps 
Right in the rays of Jupiter a small man, 
In skull-cap bordered close with crisp gray curls, 
And loose black gown showing a neck and breast 
Protected by a dim-green amulet ; 
Pale-faced, with finest nostril wont to breathe 
Ethereal passion in a world of thought ; 
Eyebrows jet-black and firm, yet delicate : 



138 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Beard scant and grizzled ; mouth shut firm, with 

curves 
So subtly turned to meanings exquisite, 
You seem to read them as you read a word 
Full-vowel led, long-descended, pregnant — rich 
With legacies from long, laborious lives. 
Close by him, like a genius of sleep, 
Purrs the gray cat, bridling, with snowy breast. 
A loud knock. 4t Forward !" in clear vocal ring. 
Enter the Duke, Pablo, and Annibal. 
Exit the cat, retreating toward the dark. 

Don Silva. 
You slept, Sephardo. I am come too soon. 

Sephardo. 
Nay, my lord, it was I who slept too long. 
I go to court among the stars to-night, 
So bathed my soul beforehand in deep sleep. 
But who are these ? 

Don Silva. 
Small guests, for whom I ask 
Your hospitality. Their owner comes 
Some short time hence to claim them. I am 

pledged 
To keep them safely ; so I bring them you, 
Trusting your friendship for small animals. 

Sephardo. 
Yea, am not I too a small animal ? 

Don Silva. 
I shall be much beholden to your love 
If you will be their guardian. I can trust 
No other man so well as you. The boy 
Will please you with his singing, touches too 
The viol wondrously. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



139 



Their names are ■ 



Sephardo. 

They are welcome both. 



Don Silva. 

Pablo, this — this Annibal, 
And yet, I hope, no warrior. 

Sephardo. 

We'll make peace. 
Come, Pablo, let us loosen our friend's chain. 
Deign you, my lord, to sit. Here Pablo, thou — 
Close to my chair. Now Annibal shall choose. 

[The cautious monkey, in a Moorish dress, 

A tunic white, turban and scimitar, 

Wears these stage garments, nay, his very flesh 

With silent protest ; keeps a neutral air 

As aiming at a metaphysic state 

'Twixt ■' is" and " is not ;" lets his chain be 

loosed 
By sage Sephardo's hands, sits still at first, 
Then trembles out of his neutrality, 
Looks up and leaps into Sephardo's lap, 
And chatters forth his agitated soul, 
Turning to peep at Pablo on the floor.] 

Sephardo. 
See, he declares we are at amity ! 

Don Silva. 
No brother sage had read your nature faster. 

Sephardo. 
Why, so he is a brother sage. Man thinks 
Brutes have no wisdom, since they know not his: 
Can we divine their world ? — the hidden life 



140 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



That mirrors us as hideous shapeless power, 

Cruel supremacy of sharp-edged death. 

Or fate that leaves a bleeding mother robbed ? 

Oh, they have long tradition and swift speech, 

Can tell with touches and sharp darting cries 

Whole histories of timid races taught 

To breathe in terror by red-handed man. 

Don Silva. 
Ah, you denounce my sport with hawk and 

hound. 
I would not have the angel Gabriel 
As hard as you in noting down my sins. 

Sephardo. 
Nay, they are virtues for you warriors — 
Hawking and hunting ! You are merciful 
When you leave killing men to kill the brutes. 
But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose 
To know the mind that stirs between the wings 
Of bees and building wasps, or fills the woods 
With myriad murmurs of responsive sense 
And true-aimed impulse, rather than to know 
The thoughts of warriors. 

Don Silva. 

Yet they are warriors too— 
Your animals. Your judgment limps, Sephardo . 
Death is the king of this world ; 'tis his park 
Where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain 
Are music for his banquet ; and the masque — 
The last grand masque for his diversion, is 
The Holy Inquisition. 

Sephardo. 
Ay, anon 
I may chime in with you. But not the less 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 141 

My judgment has firm feet. Though death were 

king, 
And cruelty his right-hand minister, 
Pity insurgent in some human breasts 
Makes spiritual empire, reigns supreme 
As persecuted faith in faithful hearts. 
Your small physician, weighing ninety pounds, 
A petty morsel for a healthy shark, 
Will worship mercy throned within his soul, 
Though all the luminous angels of the stars 
Burst into cruel chorus on his ear, 
Singing, 4i We know no mercy." He would cry 
44 1 know it" still, and soothe the frightened bird 
And feed the child a-hungered, walk abreast 
Of persecuted men, and keep most hate 
For rational torturers. There I stand firm. 
But you are bitter, and my speech rolls on 
Out of your note. 

Don Silva. 

No, no, I follow you. 
I too have that within which I will worship 
In spite of . . . Yes, Sephardo, I am bitter. 
I need your counsel, foresight, all your aid. 
Lay these small guests to bed, then we will talk, 

Sephardo. 
See, they are sleeping now. The boy has made 
My leg his pillow. For my brother sage. 
He'll never heed us ; he knit long ago 
A sound ape-system, wherein men are brutes 
Emitting doubtful noises. Pray, my lord, 
Unlade what burthens you : my ear and hand 
Are servants of a heart much bound to you. 

Don Silva. 
Yes, yours is love that roots in gifts bestowed 
By you on others, and will thrive the more 



142 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



The more it gives. I have a double want : 

First a confessor — not a Catholic ; 

A heart without a livery — naked manhood. 

Sephardo. 
My lord, I will be frank ; there's no such thing 
As naked manhood. If the stars look down 
On any mortal of our shape, whose strength 
Is to judge all things without preference, 
He is a monster, not a faithful man. 
While my heart beats, it shall wear livery — 
My people's livery, whose yellow badge 
Marks them for Christian scorn. I will not 

say 
Man is first man to me, then Jew or Gentile : 
That suits the rich marranos ; but to me 
My father is first father and then man. 
So much for frankness' sake. But let that pass. 
'Tis true at least, I am no Catholic 
But Salomo Sephardo, a born Jew, 
Willing to serve Don Silva. 

Don Silva. 

Oft you sing 
Another strain, and melt distinctions down 
As no more real than the wall of dark 
Seen by small fishes' eyes, that pierce a span 
In the wide ocean. Now you league yourself 
To hem me, hold me prisoner in bonds 
Made, say you — how ? — by God or Demiurge, 
By spirit or flesh — I care not ! Love was made 
Stronger than bonds, and where they press must 

break them. 
I came to you that I might breathe at large, 
And now you stifle me with talk of birth, 
Of race and livery. Yet you knew Fedalma. 
She was your friend, Sephardo. And you know 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 143 

She is gone from me — know the hounds are 

loosed 
To dog me if I seek her. 

Sephardo. 

Yes, I know. 
Forgive me that I used untimely speech, 
Pressing a bruise. I loved her well, my lord : 
A woman mixed of such fine elements 
That were all virtue and religion dead 
She'd make them newly, being what she was. 

Don Silva. 

Was ? say not was, Sephardo ! She still lives — 
Is, and is mine ; and I will not renounce 
What heaven, nay, what she gave me. I will 

sin, 
If sin I must, to win my life again. 
The fault lie with those powers who have em- 
broiled 
The world in hopeless conflict, where all truth 
Fights manacled with falsehood, and all good 
Makes but one palpitating life with ill. 

(Don Silva pauses. Sephardo is silent.] 

Sephardo, speak ! am I not justified ? 

You taught my mind to use the wing that soars 

Above the petty fences of the herd : 

Now, when I need your doctrine, you are dumb 

Sephardo. 

Patience ! Hidalgos want interpreters 
Of untold dreams and riddles ; they insist 
On dateless horoscopes, on formulas 
To raise a possible spirit, nowhere named. 
Science must be their wishing-cap ; the stars 



144 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Speak plainer for high largesse. No, my lord ! 
I cannot counsel you to unknown deeds. 
This much I can divine : you wish to find 
Her whom you love — to make a secret search. 

Don Silva. 

That is begun already : a messenger 
Unknown to all has been despatched this night 
But forecast must be used, a plan devised, 
Ready for service when my scout returns, 
Bringing the invisible thread to guide my steps 
Toward that lost self my life is aching with. 
Sephardo, I will go : and I must go 
Unseen by all save you ; though, at our need. 
We may trust Alvar. 

Sephardo. 

A grave task, my lord. 
Have you a shapen purpose, or mere will 
That sees the end alone and not the means ? 
Resolve will melt no rocks. 

Don Silva. 

But it can scale them. 
This fortress has two private issues : one, 
Which served the Gypsies' flight, to me is 

closed : 
Our bands must watch the outlet, now betrayed 
To cunning enemies. Remains one other, 
Known to no man save me : a secret left 
As heirloom in our house : a secret safe 
Even from him — from Father Isidor. 
' Tis he who forces me to use it — he : 
All's virtue that cheats bloodhounds. Hear 

Sephardo. 
Given, my scout returns and brings me news 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 145 

I can straight act on, I shall want your aid. 
The issue lies below this tower, your fastness, 
Where, by my charter, you rule absolute. 
I shall feign illness ; you with mystic air 
Must speak of treatment asking vigilance 
(Nay I am ill — my life has half ebbed out). 
I shall be whimsical, devolve command 
On Don Diego, speak of poisoning. 
Insist on being lodged within this tower. 
And rid myself of tendance save from you 
And perhaps from Alvar. So I shall escape 
Unseen by spies, shall win the days I need 
To ransom her and have her safe enshrined. 
No matter, were my flight disclosed at last : 
I shall come back as from a duel fought 
Which no man can undo. Now you know all. 
Say, can I count on you ? 

Sephardo. 

For faithfulness 
In aught that I may promise, yes, my lord. 
But — for a pledge of faithfulness — this warning. 
I will betray nought for your personal harm : 
I love you. But note this— I am a Jew ; 
And while the Christian persecutes my race, 
I'll turn at need even the Christian's trust 
Into a weapon and a shield for Jews. 
Shall Cruelty crowned — wielding the savage force 
Of multitudes, and calling savageness God 
Who gives it victory — upbraid deceit 
And ask for faithfulness ? I love you well. 
You are my friend. But yet you are a Christian, 
Whose birth has bound you to the Catholic kings. 
There may come moments when to share my joy 
Would make you traitor, when to share youf 

grief 
Would make me other than a Jew .... 



146 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Don Silva. 

What need 
To urge that now, Sephardo ? I am one 
Of many Spanish nobles who detest 
The roaring bigotry of the herd, would fain 
Dash from the lips of king and queen the cup 
Filled with besotting venom, half infused 
By avarice and half by priests. And now — 
Now when the cruelty you flout me with 
Pierces me too in the apple of my eye, 
Now when my kinship scorches me like hate 
Flashed from a mother's eye, you choose this time 
To talk of birth as of inherited rage 
Deep-down, volcanic, fatal, bursting forth 
From under hard-taught reason ? Wondrous 

friend ! 
My uncle Isidor's echo, mocking me, 
From the opposing quarter of the heavens, 
With iteration of the thing I know, 
That I'm a Christian knight and Spanish duke! 
The consequence? Why, that I know. It lies 
In my own hands and not on raven tongues. 
The knight and noble shall not wear the chain 
Of false-linked thoughts in brains of other men. 
What question was there 'twixt us two, of aught 
That makes division ? When I come to you 
I come for other doctrine than the Prior's. 

Sephardo. 
My lord, you are o'erwrought by pain. My words 
That carried innocent meaning, do but float 
Like little emptied cups upon the flood 
Your mind brings with it. I but answered you 
With regular proviso, such as stands 
In testaments and charters, to forefend 
A possible case which none deem likelihood ; 
Just turned my sleeve, and pointed to the brand 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 147 

Of brotherhood that limits every pledge. 
Superfluous nicety— the student's trick, 
Who will not drink until he can define 
What water is and is not. But enough. 
My will to serve you now knows no division 
Save the alternate beat of love and fear. 
There's danger in this quest — name, honor, life — 
My lord, the stake is great, and are you 
sure . . . 

Don Silva. 

No, I am sure of nought but this, Sephardo, 
That I will go. Prudence is but conceit 
Hoodwinked by ignorance. There's nought 

exists 
That is not dangerous and holds not death 
For souls or bodies. Prudence turns its helm 
To flee the storm and lands 'mid pestilence. 
Wisdom would end by throwing dice with folly 
But for dire passion which alone makes choice. 
And I have chosen as the lion robbed 
Chooses to turn upon the ravisher. 
If love were slack, the Prior's imperious will 
Would move it to outmatch him. But, Sephardo, 
Were all else mute, all passive as sea-calms, 
My soul is one great hunger — I must see her. 
Now you are smiling. Oh, you merciful men 
Pick up coarse griefs and fling them in the face 
Of us whom life with long descent has trained 
To subtler pains, mocking your ready balms. 
You smile at my soul's hunger. 

Sephardo. 

Science smiles 
And sways our lips in spite of us, my lord. 
When thought weds fact — when maiden prophecv 
Waiting, believing, sees the bridal torch. 



148 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

I use not vulgar measures for your grief. 
My pity keeps no cruel feasts ; but thought 
Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, 
And seizing some fine thread of verity 
Knows momentary godhead. 

Don Silva. 

And your thought ? 

Sephardo. 

Seized on the close agreement of your words 
With what is written in your horoscope. 

Don Silva. 
Reach it me now. 

Sephardo. 

By your leave, Annibal. 

{He places Annibal on Pablo's lap and rises. 
The boy moves without waking, and his 
head falls on the opposite side. Sephardo 
fetches a cushion and lays Pablo's head 
gently down upon it, then goes to reach the 
parchment from a cabinet. Annibal, 
having waked up in alarm, shuts his eyes 
quickly again and pretends to sleep.) 

Don Silva. 

I wish, by new appliance of your skill, 
Reading afresh the records of the sky, 
You could detect more special augury. 
Such chance oft happens, for all characters 
Must shrink or widen, as our wine-skins do. 
For more or less that we can pour in them ; 
And added years give ever a new key 
To fixed prediction. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



149 



Sephardo (returning with the parchment and 
reseating himself). 

True ; our growing thought 
Makes growing revelation. But demand not 
Specific augury, as of sure success 
In meditated projects, or of ends 
To be foreknown by peeping in God's scroll. 
I say — nay, Ptolemy said it, but wise books 
For half the truths they hold are honored tombs- 
Prediction is contingent, of effects 
Where causes and concomitants are mixed 
To seeming wealth of possibilities 
Beyond our reckoning. Who will pretend 
To tell the adventures of each single fish 
Within the Syrian Sea ? Show me a fish, 
I'll weigh him, tell his kind, what he devoured, 
What would have devoured him — but for one Bias 
Who netted him instead ; nay, could I tell 
That had Bias missed him, he would not have 

died 
Of poisonous mud, and so made carrion, 
Swept off at last by some sea-scavenger ? 

Don Silva. 
Ay, now you talk of fishes, you get hard. 
I note you merciful men : you can endure 
Torture of fishes and hidalgos. Follows ? 

Sephardo. 
By how much, then, the fortunes of a man 
Are made of elements refined and mixed 
Beyond a tunny's, what our science tells 
Of the star's influence hath contingency 
In special issues. Thus, the loadstone draws, 
Acts like a will to make the iron submiss ; 
But garlic rubbing it, that chief effect 
Lies in suspense ; the iron keeps at large, 



15° 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



And garlic is controller of the stone. 
And so, my lord, your horoscope declares 
Not absolutely of your sequent lot, 
But, by our lore's authentic rules, sets forth 
What gifts, what dispositions, likelihoods 
The aspects of the heavens conspired to fuse 
With your incorporate soul. Aught more than this 
Is vulgar doctrine. For the ambient, 
Though a cause regnant, is not absolute, 
But suffers a determining restraint 
From action of the subject qualities 
In proximate motion. 

Don Silva. 

Yet you smiled just now 
At some close fitting of my horoscope 
With present fact — with this resolve of mine 
To quit the fortress ? 

Sephardo. 

Nay, not so ; I smiled, 
Observing how the temper of your soul 
Sealed long tradition of the influence shed 
By the heavenly spheres. Here is you." horo- 
scope : 
The aspects of the Moon with Mars conjunct, 
Of Venus and the Sun with Saturn, lord 
Of the ascendant, make symbolic speech 
Whereto your words gave running paraphrase. 

Don Silva (impatiently). 
What did I say ? 

Sephardo. 

You spoke as oft you did 
When I was schooling you at C6rdova, 
And lessons on the noun and verb were drowned 
With sudden stream of general debate 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 151 

On things and actions. Always in that stream 
I saw the play of babbling currents, saw 
A nature o'er-endowed with opposites 
Making a self alternate, where each hour 
Was critic of the last, each mood too strong 
For tolerance of its fellow in close yoke. 
The ardent planets stationed as supreme, 
Potent in action, suffer light malign 
From luminaries large and coldly bright 
Inspiring meditative doubt, which straight 
Doubts of itself, by interposing act 
Of Jupiter in the fourth house fortified 
With power ancestral. So, my lord, I read 
The changeless in the changing ; so I read 
The constant action of celes«tial powers 
Mixed into waywardness of mortal men, 
Whereof no sage's eye can trace the course 
And see the close. 

Don Silva. 

Fruitful result, O sage ! 
Certain uncertainty. 

Sephardo. 

Yea, a result 
Fruitful as seeded earth, where certainty 
Would be as barren as a globe of gold. 
I love you, and would serve you well, my lord. 
Your rashness vindicates itself too much, 
Puts harness on of cobweb theory 
While rushing like a cataract. Be warned. 
Resolve with you is a fire-breathing steed, 
But it sees visions, and may feel the air 
Impassable with thoughts that come too late, 
Rising from out the grave of murdered honor. 
Look at your image in your horoscope : 

{Laying the horoscope before Don Silva, ) 



IJ2 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

You are so mixed, my lord, that each to-day 
May seem a maniac to its morrow. 

Don Silva (pushing away the horoscope, rising 
and turning to look out at the open window). 

No! 
No morrow e'er will say that I am mad 
Not to renounce her. Risks ! I know them all. 
I've dogged each lurking, ambushed consequence; 
I've handled every chance to know its shape 
As blind men handle bolts. Oh, I'm too sane i 

I see the Prior's nets. He does my deed ; 
For he has narrowed all my life to this — 
That I must find her by some hidden means. 

(He turns and stands close in front of Sephardo.) 

One word, Sephardo — leave that horoscope, 
Which is but iteration of myself, 
And give me promise. Shall I count on you 
To act upon my signal ? Kings of Spain 
Like me have found their refuge in a Jew, 
And trusted in his counsel. You will help me ? 

Sephardo. 

Yes, my lord, I will help you. Israel 
Is to the nations as the body's heart : 
Thus writes our poet Jehuda. I will act 
So that no man may ever say through me 

II Your Israel is nought," and make my deeds 
The mud they fling upon my brethren. 

I will not fail you, save — you know the terms % 
I am a Jew, and not that infamous life 
That takes on bastardy, will know no father, 
So shrouds itself in the pale abstract, Man. 
You should be sacrificed to Israel 
If Israel needed it. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



iS3 



Don Silva. 

I fear not that. 
I am no friend of fines and banishment, 
Or flames that, fed on heretics, still gape, 
And must have heretics made to feed them still. 
I take your terms, and for the rest, your love 
Will not forsake me. 

Sephardo. 

'Tis hard Roman love, 
That looks away and stretches forth the sword 
Bared for its master's breast to run upon. 
But you will have it so. Love shall obey. 

(Don Silva turns to the zvindow again, and 
is silent for a few moments, looking at 
the sky. ) 

Don Silva. 
See now, Sephardo, you would keep no faith 
To smooth the path of cruelty. Confess, 
The deed I would not do, save for the strait 
Another brings me to (quit my command, 
Resign it for brief space, I mean no more) — 
Were that deep branded, then the brand should 

fix 
On him who urged me. 

Sephardo. 

Will it, though, my lord ? 

Don Silva. 
I speak not of the fact but of the right. 

Sephardo. 
My lord, you said but now you were resolved. 
Question not if the world will be unjust 
Branding your deed. If conscience has two courts 



154 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



With differing verdicts, where shall lie the appeal ? 

Our law must be without us or within. 

The Highest speaks through all our people's 

voice, 
Custom, tradition, and old sanctities ; 
Or he reveals himself by new decrees 
Of inward certitude. 

Don Silva. 

My love for her 
Makes highest law, must be the voice of God. 

Sephardo. 

I thought, but now, you seemed to make excuse. 
And plead as in some court where Spanish 

knights 
Are tried by other laws than those of love. 

Don Silva. 

'Twas momentary. I shall dare it all. 
How the great planet glows, and looks at me, 
And seems to pierce me with his effluence ! 
Were he a living God, these rays that stir 
In me the pulse of wonder were in him 
Fulness of knowledge. Are you certified, 
Sephardo, that the astral science shrinks 
To such pale ashes, dead symbolic forms 
For that congenital mixture of effects 
Which life declares without the aid of lore ? 
If there are times propitious or malign 
To our first framing, then must all events 
Have favoring periods : you cull your plants 
By signal of the heavens, then why not trace 
As others would by astrologic rule 
Times of good augury for momentous acts, — 
As secret journeys ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



*55 



Sephardo. 

Oh, rny lord, the stars 
Act not as witchcraft or as muttered spells. 
I said before they are not absolute, 
And tell no fortunes. I adhere alone 
To such tradition of their agencies 
As reason fortifies. 

Don Silva. 

A barren science ! 
Some argue now 'tis folly. 'Twere as well 
Be of their mind. If those bright stars had will — 
But they are fatal fires, and know no love. 
Of old, I think, the world was happier 
With many gods, who held a struggling life 
As mortals do, and helped men in the straits 
Of forced misdoing. I doubt that horoscope. 

(Don Silva turns from the window and re- 
seats himself opposite Sephardo.) 
I am most self-contained, and strong to bear. 
No man save you has seen my trembling lip 
Utter her name, since she was lost to me. 
I'll face the progeny of all my deeds. 

Sephardo. 
May they be fair ! No horoscope makes slaves. 
'Tis but a mirror, shows one image forth, 
And leaves the future dark with endless " ifs." 

Don Silva. 
I marvel, my Sephardo, you can pinch 
With confident selection these few grains, 
And call them verity, from out the dust 
Of crumbling error. Surely such thought creeps, 
With insect exploration of the world. 
Were I a Hebrew, now, I would be bold. 
Why should you fear, not being Catholic ? 



156 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Sephardo. 

Lo ! you yourself, my lord, mix subtleties 
With gross belief ; by momentary lapse 
Conceive, with all the vulgar, that we Jews 
Must hold ourselves God's outlaws, and defy 
All good with blasphemy, because we hold 
Your good is evil ; think we must turn pale 
To see our portraits painted in your hell. 
And sin the more for knowing we are lost. 

Don Silva. 

Read not my words with malice. I but meant. 
My temper hates an over-cautious march. 

Sephardo. 

The Unnamable made not the search for truth 
To suit hidalgos' temper. I abide 
By that wise spirit of listening reverence 
Which marks the boldest doctors of our race. 
For Truth, to us, is like a living child 
Born of two parents : if the parents part 
And will divide the child, how shall it live ? 
Or, I will rather say : Two angels guide 
The path of men, both aged and yet young, 
As angels are, ripening through endless years. 
On one he leans : some call her Memory, 
And some, Tradition ; and her voice is sweet, 
With deep mysterious accords : the other, 
Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams 
A light divine and searching on the earth, 
Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, 
Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew 
Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp 
Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked 
But for Tradition ; we walk evermore 
To higher paths, by brightening Reason's lamp 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 157 

Stili we are purblind, tottering. I hold less 

Than Aben-Ezra, of that aged lore 

Brought by long centuries from Chaldsean plains ; 

The Jew-taught Florentine rejects it all. 

For still the light is measured by the eye, 

And the weak organ fails. I may see ill ; 

But over all belief is faithfulness, 

Which fulfils vision with obedience. 

So, I must grasp my morsels : truth is oft 

Scattered in fragments round a stately pile 

Built half of error ; and the eye's defect 

May breed too much denial. But, my lord, 

I weary your sick soul. Go now with me 

Into the turret. We will watch the spheres, 

And see the constellations bend and plunge 

Into a depth of being where our eyes 

Hold them no more. We'll quit ourselves and be 

The red Aldebaran or bright Sirius, 

And sail as in a solemn voyage, bound 

On some great quest we know not. 

Don Silva. 

Let us go. 
She may be watching too, and thought of her 
Sways me, as if she knew, to every act 
Of pure allegiance. 

Sephardo. 

That is love's perfection- 
Tuning the soul to all her harmonies 
So that no chord can jar. Now we will mount. 



158 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



A large hall in the Castle, of Moorish architecture. 
On the side where the windows are y an outer 
gallery. Pages and other young gentle men at- 
tached to Don Silva's household, gathered 
chiefly at one end of the hall. Some are mov- 
ing about ; others are lounging on the carved 
benches ; others ; half stretched on pieces of 
matting and carpet, are gambling. Arias, a 
stripling of fifteen, sings by snatches in a boy- 
ish treble, as he walks up and down, and losses 
back the nuts which another youth flings 
toward him. In the middle Don Amador, 
a gaunt, gray-haired soldier, in a handsome 
uniform, sits in a marble ?'ed-cus hioned chair, 
with a large book spread out on his knees, 
from which he is reading aloud, while his 
voice is half drowned by the talk that is going 
on around him, first one voice and then an- 
other surging above the hum. 

Arias {singing). 
There was a holy hermit 

Who counted all things loss 
For Christ his Master s glory : 

He made an ivory cross, 
And as he knelt before it 

And wept his murdered Lord, 
The ivory turned to iron, 

The cross became a sword. 

Jose" (from the floor). 
I say, twenty cruzados ! thy Galician wit ca» 
never count. 

Hernando (also from the floor). 
And thy Sevillian wit always counts double. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



159 



Arias (singing). 
The tears that fell upon it, 

They turned to red, red rust t 
The tears that fell from off it 

Made writing in the dust. 
The holy hermit, gazing, 

Saw words upon the ground : 
44 The sword be red forever 

With the blood of false Mahound." 

Don Amador (looking up from his book, and 
raising his voice). 

What, gentlemen ! Our Glorious Lady defend 
us ! 

Enriquez (from the benches). 

Serves the infidels right ! They have sold 
Christians enough to people half the towns in 
Paradise. If the Queen, now, had divided the 
pretty damsels of Malaga among the Castilians 
who have been helping in the holy war, and not 
sent half of them to Naples . . . 

Arias (singing again). 
At the battle of Clavijo 
In the days of King Ramiro, 
Help us, Allah ! cried the Moslem, 
Cried the Spaniard, Heaven's chosen, 

God and Santiago I 
Fabian. 
Oh, the very tail of our chance has vanished. 
The royal army is breaking up — going home for 
the v T inter. The Grand Master sticks to his own 
border. 

Arias (singing.) 
Straight out-flushing like the rainbozv, 
See him come, celestial Baron, 



l6o THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Mounted knight, with red-crossed banner. 
Plunging earthward to the battle, 

Glorious Santiago ! 

HURTADO. 

Yes, yes, through the pass of By-and-by, you; 
go to the valley of Never. We might have done 
a great feat, if the Marquis of Cadiz . . . 

Arias (sings). 
A$ the flame before the swift wind, 
See, he fires us, we burn with him! 
Flash our swords, dash Pagans backward — 
Victory he ! pale fear is Allah I 

God with Santiago / 

Don Amador {raising his voice to a cry). 
Sangre de Dios, gentlemen ! 

(He shuts the book, and lets it fall with a bang 
on the floor. Thei'e is instant silence?) 

To what good end is it that I, who studied at 
Salamanca, and can write verses agreeable to the 
Glorious Lady with the point of a sword which 
hath done harder service, am reading aloud in a 
clerkly manner from a book which hath been culled 
from the flowers of all books, to instruct you in 
the knowledge befitting those who would be 
knights and worthy hidalgos ? I had as lief be 
reading in a belfry. And gambling too ! As if 
it were a time when we needed not the help of 
God and the saints ! Surely for the space of one 
hour ye might subdue your tongues to your ears, 
that so your tongues might learn somewhat of 
civility and modesty. Wherefore am I master of 
the Duke's retinue, if my voice is to run along 
like a gutter in a storm ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 161 

HuRTADO (lifting up the book, and respectfully 
presenting it to Don Amador. 

Pardon, Don Amador ! The air is so corn- 
moved by your voice, that it stirs our tongues in 
spite of us. 

Don Amador {reopening the book). 

Confess, now, it is a goose-headed trick, that 
when rational sounds are made for your edifica- 
tion, you find nought in it but an occasion for 
purposeless gabble. I will report it to the Duke, 
and the reading-time shall be doubled, and my 
office of reader shall be handed over to Fray 
Domingo. 

(While Don Amador has been speaking, 
Don Silva, with Don Alvar, has 
appeared walking in the outer gallery 
on which the windows are opened. ) 

All (in concert). 
No, no, no. 

Don Amador. 

Are ye ready, then, to listen, if I finish the 
wholesome extract from the Seven Parts, wherein 
the wise King Alfonso hath set down the reason 
why knights should be of gentle birth ? Will ye 
now be silent ? 

All. 
Yes, silent. 

Don Amador. 

But when I pause, and look up, I give any 
leave to speak, if he hath aught pertinent to 
say. 



1 62 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

(Reads.) 

11 And this nobility comethin three ways : first, 
by lineage, secondly, by science, and thirdly, by 
valor and worthy behavior. Now, although they 
who gain nobility through science or good deeds 
are rightfully called noble and gentle ; neverthe- 
less, they are with the highest fitness so called who 
are noble by ancient lineage, and lead a worthy 
life as by inheritance from afar ; and hence are 
more bound and constrained to act well, and 
guard themselves from error and wrong-doing ; 
for in their case it is more true that by evil-doing 
they bring injury and shame not only on them- 
selves, but also on those from whom they are de- 
rived." 

Don Amador {placing his forefinger for a mark 
on the page, and looking up, while he keeps 
his voice raised, as wishing Don Silva to 
overhear him in the judicious discharge of his 
function.) 

Hear ye that, young gentlemen ? See ye not 
that if ye have but bad manners even, they dis- 
grace you more than gross misdoings disgrace the 
low-born ? Think you, Arias, it becomes the 
son of your house irreverently to sing and fling 
nuts, to the interruption of your elders ? 

ARIAS (sitting on the floor, and leaning back- 
ward on his elbows). 
Nay, Don Amador ; King Alfonso, they say, 
was a heretic, and I think that is not true writing. 
For noble birth gives us more leave to do ill if we 
Hke. 

Don Amador (lifting his brows). 
What bold and blasphemous talk is this ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 163 

Arias. 
Why, nobles are only punished now and then, 
in a grand way, and have their heads cut off, like 
the Grand Constable. I shouldn't mind that. 

Jose. 
Nonsense, Arias ! nobles have their heads cut 
off because their crimes are noble. If they did 
what was unknightly, they would come to shame. 
Is not that true, Don Amador ? 

Don Amador. 
Arias is a contumacious puppy, who will bring 
dishonor on his parentage. Pray, sirrah, whom 
did you ever hear speak as you have spoken ? 

Arias. 
Nay, I speak out of my own head. I shall go 
and ask the Duke. 

Hurtado. 
Now, now ! you are too bold, Arias. 

Arias. 
Oh, he is never angry with me, — (Dropping his 
voice) because the Lady Fedalma liked me. She 
said I was a good boy, and pretty, and that is what 
you are not, Hurtado. 

Hurtado. 
Girl-face ! See, now, if you dare ask the Duke. 

(Don Silva is just entering the hall from 
the gallery, with Don Alvar behind 
him y intending to pass out at the other 
end. All rise with homage. Don 
Silva bows coldly and abstractedly. 
Arias advances from the group, and 
goes up to Don Silva.) 



164 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Arias. 
My lord, is it true that a noble is more dishon- 
ored than other men if he does aught dishonor- 
able ? 

Don SlLVA {first blushing deeply, and grasping 
his sword, then raising his hand and giving 
Arias a blow on the ear). 

Varlet ! 

Arias. 

My lord, I am a gentleman. 

(Don SihVApushes him away, and passes on 
hurriedly.) 

Don Alvar (following and turning to speak). 

Go, go ! you should not speak to the Duke 
when you are not called upon. He is ill and 
much distempered. 

(ARIAS retires, flushed, with tears in his eyes 
His companions look too much sur- 
prised to triumph. Don Amador re- 
mains silent and confused. ) 



The Placa Santiago during busy market-time. 
Mules and asses laden with fruits and vege- 
tables. Stalls and booths filled with wares of 
all sorts. A crowd of buyers and sellers. A 
stalwart woman, with keen eyes, leaning over 
the panniers of a mule laden with apples, 
watches Lorenzo, who is lounging through 
the market. As he approaches her, he is mei 
by Blasco. 

Lorenzo. 
Well met, friend. 



THE SPANISH G YPSV. 1 65 

Blasco. 

Ay, for we are soon to part, 
And I would see you at the hostelry, 
To take my reckoning. I go forth to-day. 

Lorenzo. 

'Tis grievous parting with good company. 
I would I had the gold to pay such guests 
For all my pleasure in their talk. 

Blasco. 

Why, yes ; 
A solid-headed man of Aragon 
Has matter in him that you Southerners lack. 
You like my company — 'tis natural. 
But, look you, I have done my business well, 
Have sold and ta'en commissions. I come 

straight 
From — you know who — I like not naming him. 
I'm a thick man : you reach not my backbone 
With any tooth-pick ; but I tell you this : 
He reached it with his eye, right to the marrow. 
It gave me heart that I had plate to sell, 
For, saint or no saint, a good silversmith 
Is wanted for God's service ; and my plate — 
He judged it well — bought nobly. 

Lorenzo. 

A great man, 
And holy ! 

Blasco. 

Yes, I'm glad I leave to-day. 
For there are stories give a sort of smell — 
One's nose has fancies. A good trader, sir, 
Likes not this plague of lapsing in the air, 
Most caught by men with funds. And they do say 



1 66 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

There's a great terror here in Moors and Jews, 
I would say, Christians of unhappy blood. 
'Tis monstrous, sure, that men of substance lapse, 
And risk their property. I know I'm sound. 
No heresy was ever bait to me. Whate'er 
Is the right faith, that I believe — nought else. 

Lorenzo. 

Ay, truly, for the flavor of true faith 
Once known must sure be sweetest to the taste. 
But an uneasy mood is now abroad 
Within the town ; partly, for that the Duke 
Being sorely sick, has yielded the command 
To Don Diego, a most valiant man, 
More Catholic than the Holy Father's self, 
Half chiding God that He will tolerate 
A Jew or Arab ; though 'tis plain they're made 
For profit of good Christians. And weak heads- 
Panic will knit all disconnected facts — 
Draw hence belief in evil auguries, 
Rumors of accusation and arrest, 
All air-begotten. Sir, you need not go. 
But if it must be so, I'll follow you 
In fifteen minutes — finish marketing, 
Then be at home to speed you on your way. 

Blasco. 

Do so. I'll back to Saragossa straight. 

The court and nobles are retiring now 

And wending northward. There'll be fresh 

demand 
For bells and images against the Spring, 
When doubtless our great Catholic sovereigns 
Will move to conquest of these eastern parts, 
And cleanse Granada from the infidel. 
Stay, sir, with God, until we meet again .' 



THE SPANISH GYPSY, 167 

Lorenzo. 
Go, sir, with God, until I follow you ! 

(Exit Blasco. Lorenzo passes on toward 
the market-woman, who, as he ap- 
proaches, raises herself from her leaning 
attitude?) 

Lorenzo. 

Good day, my mistress. How's your merchan- 
dise? 
Fit for a host to buy ? Your apples now, 
They have fair cheeks ; how are they at the core ? 

M arret- Woman. 
Good, good, sir ! Taste and try. See, here is one 
Weighs a man's head. The best are bound with 

tow : 
They're worth the pains, to keep the peel from 

splits. 

(She takes out an apple bound with tow, 
and, as she puts it into Lorenzo's 
hand, speaks in a lower tone.) 

*Tis called the Miracle. You open it, 
And find it full of speech. 

Lorenzo. 

Ay, give it me, 
I'll take it to the Doctor in the tower. 
He feeds on fruit, and if he likes the sort 
I'll buy them for him. Meanwhile, drive your ass 
Round to my hostelry. I'll straight be there. 
You'll not refuse some barter ? 

Market-Woman. 

No, not I. 
Feathers and skins. 



168 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Lorenzo. 

Good, till we meet again* 

(Lorenzo, after smelling at the apple, puts 
it into a poach- like basket which hangs 
before him y and walks away. The 
woman drives off the mtile.) 

A Letter. 

"Zarca, the chieftain of the Gypsies, greets 

The King El Zagal. Let the force be sent 

With utmost swiftness to the Pass of Luz. 

A good five hundred added to my bands 

Will master all the garrison : the town 

Is half with us, and will not lift an arm 

Save on our side. My scouts have found a way 

Where once we thought the fortress most secure : 

Spying a man upon the height, they traced, 

By keen conjecture piecing broken sight, 

His downward path, and found its issue. There 

A file of us can mount, surprise the fort 

And give the signal to our friends within 

To ope the gates for our confederate bands 

Who will lie eastward ambushed by the rocks. 

Waiting the night. Enough ; give me command, 

Bedmar is yours. Chief Zarca will redeem 

His pledge of highest servire to the Moor : 

Let the Moor too be faithful and repay 

The Gypsy with the furtherance he needs 

To lead his people over Bahr el Scham 

And plant them on the shore of Africa. 

So may the King El Zagal live as one 

Who, trusting Allah will be true to him, 

Maketh himself as Allah true to friends." 



BOOK III. 



Quit now the town, and with a journeying dream 

Swift as the wings of sound yet seeming slow 

Through multitudinous pulsing of stored sense 

And spiritual space, see walls and towers 

Lie in the silent whiteness of a trance. 

Giving no sign of that warm life within 

That moves and murmurs through their hidden 

heart. 
Pass o'er the mountain, wind in sombre shade, 
Then wind into the light and see the town 
Shrunk to white crust upon the darker rock. 
Turn east and south, descend, then rise anew 
'Mid smaller mountains ebbing toward the plain : 
Scent the fresh breath of the height-loving herbs 
That, trodden by the pretty parted hoofs 
Of nimble goats, sigh at the innocent bruise. 
And with a mingled difference exquisite 
Pour a sweet burthen on the buoyant air. 
Pause now and be all ear. Far from the south, 
Seeking the listening silence of the heights, 
Comes a slow-dying sound — the Moslems' call 
To prayer in afternoon. Bright in the sun 
Like tall white sails on a green shadowy sea 
Stand Moorish watch-towers : 'neath that eastern 

sky 
Couches unseen the strength of Moorish Baza ; 
Where the meridian bends lies Guadix, hold 
Of brave El Zagal. This is Moorish land, 
Where Allah lives unconquered in dark breasts 



i7o THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And blesses still the many-nourishing earth 
With dark-armed industry. See from the steep 
The scattered olives hurry in gray throngs 
Down toward the valley, where the little stream 
Parts a green hollow 'twixt the gentler slopes , 
And in that hollow, dwellings : not white homes 
Of building Moors, but little swarthy tents 
Such as of old perhaps on Asian plains, 
Or wending westward past the Caucasus, 
Our fathers raised to rest in. Close they swarm 
About two taller tents, and viewed afar 
Might seem a dark-robed crowd in penitence 
That silent kneel ; but come now in their midst 
And watch a busy, bright-eyed, sportive life ! 
Tall maidens been to feed the tethered goat, 
The ragged kirtle fringing at the knee 
Above the living curves, the shoulder's smooth- 
ness 
Parting the torrent strong of ebon hair. 
Women with babes, the wild and neutral glance 
Swayed now to sweet desire of mothers' eyes, 
Rock their strong cradling arms and chant low 

strains 
Taught by monotonous and soothing winds 
That fall at night-time on the dozing ear. 
The crones plait reeds, or shred the vivid herbs 
Into the caldron : tiny urchins crawl 
Or sit and gurgle forth their infant joy. 
Lads lying sphynx-like with uplifted breast 
Propped on their elbows, their black manes tossed 

back, 
Fling up the coin and watch its fatal fall, 
Dispute and scramble, run and wrestle fierce, 
Then fall to play and fellowship again ; 
Or in a thieving swarm they run to plague 
The grandsires, who return with rabbits slung, 
And with the mules fruit-laden from the fields. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 171 

Some striplings choose the smooth stones from the 

brook 
To serve the slingers, cut the twigs for snares, 
Or trim the hazel-wands, or at the bark 
Of some exploring dog they dart away 
With swift precision toward a moving speck. 
These are the brood of Zarca's Gypsy tribe ; 
Most like an earth-born race bred by the Sun 
On some rich tropic soil, the father's light 
Flashing in coal-black eyes, the mother's blood 
With bounteous elements feeding their young 

limbs. 
The stalwart men and youths are at the wars 
Following their chief, all save a trusty band 
Who keep strict watch along the northern heights. 

But see, upon a pleasant spot removed 
From the camp's hubbub, where the thicket strong 
Of huge-eared cactus makes a bordering curve 
And casts a shadow, lies a sleeping man 
With Spanish hat screening his upturned face, 
His doublet loose, his right arm backward flung, 
His left caressing close the long-necked lute 
That seems to sleep too, leaning tow'rd its lord. 
He draws deep breath secure but not unwatched. 
Moving a-tiptoe, silent as the elves, 
As mischievous too, trip three bare-footed girls 
Not opened yet to womanhood — dark flowers 
In slim long buds : some paces farther off 
Gathers a little white-teethed shaggy group, 
A grinning chorus to the merry play. 
The tripping girls have robbed the sleeping man 
Of all his ornaments. Hita is decked 
With an embroidered scarf across her rags ; 
Tralla, with thorns for pins, sticks two rosettes 
Upon her threadbare woollen ; Hinda now, 
Prettiest and boldest, tucks her kirtle up 



{;2 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

As wallet for the stolen buttons — then 
Bends with her knife to cut from off the hat 
The aigrette and long- feather ; deftly cuts, 
Yet wakes the sleeper, who with sudden start 
Shakes off the masking hat and shows the face 
Of Juan : Hinda swift as thought leaps back. 
But carries off the spoil triumphantly, 
And leads the chorus of a happy laugh, 
Running with all the naked-footed imps, 
Till with safe survey all can face about 
And watch for signs of stimulating chase, 
While Hinda ties long grass around her brow 
To stick the feather in with majesty. 
Juan still sits contemplative, with looks 
Alternate at the spoilers and their work. 

Juan. 
Ah, you marauding kite — my feather gone ! 
My belt, my scarf, my buttons and rosettes ! 
This is to be a brother of your tribe ! 
The fiery-blooded children of the Sun — 
So says chief Zarca — children of the Sun ! 
Ay, ay, the black and stinging flies he breeds 
To plague the decent body of mankind. 
41 Orpheus, professor of the gai saber> 
Made all the brutes polite by dint of song." 
Pregnant — but as a guide in daily life 
Delusive. For if song and music cure 
The barbarous trick of thieving, 'tis a cure 
That works as slowly as old Doctor Time 
In curing folly. Why, the minxes there 
Have rhythm in their toes, and music rings 
As readily from them as from little bells 
Swung by the breeze. Well, I will try the physic. 
(Pie touches his lute.) 
Hem ! taken rightly, any single thing, 
The Rabbis say, implies all other things. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



1 73 



k. knotty task, though, the unravelling 
Meum and Tutim from a saraband : 
It needs a subtle logic, nay, perhaps 
A good large property, to see the thread. 

(He (ouches the lute again. \ 
There's more of odd than even in this world. 
Else pretty sinners would not be let off 
Sooner than ugly ; for if honeycombs 
Are to be got by stealing, they should go 
Where life is bitterest on the tongue. And yet — 
Because this minx has pretty ways I wink 
At all her tricks, though if a flat-faced lass, 
With eyes askew, were half as bold as she, 
I should chastise her with a hazel switch. 
I'm a plucked peacock — even my voice and wit 
Without a tail ! — why, any fool detects 
The absence of your tail, but twenty fools 
May not detect the presence of your wit. 

(He touches his lute again.) 
Well, I must coax my tail back cunningly, 
For to run after these brown lizards — ah ! 
I think the lizards lift their ears at this. 

(As he thrums his lute the lads and girls 
gradually approach : he touches it more 
briskly, and Hind A, advancing \ begins 
to move arms and legs with an initiatory 
dancing movement, smiling coaxingly 
at Juan. He suddenly stops, lays 
dow7t his lute and folds his arms.) 

Juan. 
What, you expect a tune to dance to, eh ? 

Hinda, Hita, Tralla, and the rest 
(clapping their hands). 
Yes, yes, a tune, a tune ! 



I 7 4 THE SPANISH GYPSY, 

Juan. 

But that is what you cannot have, my sweet 
brothers and sisters. The tunes are all dead — 
dead as the tunes of the lark when you have 
plucked his wings off ; dead as the song of the 
grasshopper when the ass has swallowed him. I 
can play and sing no more. Hinda has killed 
my tunes. 

{A 11 cry out in consternation. H I ND A gives 
a wail and tries to examine the lute.) 

Juan {waving her off). 

Understand, Senora Hinda, that the tunes are 
in me ; they are not in the lute till I put them 
there. And if you cross my humor, I shall be as 
tuneless as a bag of wool. If the tunes are to be 
brought to life again, I must have my feather 
back. 

(Hinda kisses his hands and feet coax- 
ingly.) 

No, no ! not a note will come for coaxing. 
The feather, I say, the feather ! 

(Hinda sorrowfully takes off the feat her % 
and gives it to Juan.) 

Ah, now let us see. Perhaps a tune will come. 

(He plays a measure, and the three girls 
begin to dance ; then he suddenly stops. ) 

Juan. 
No, the tune will not come : it wants the 
aigrette (pointing to it on Hinda s neck). 

(Hinda, with rather less hesitation, but 
again sorrowfully, takes off the aigrette, 
and gives it to him.) 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 175 

Juan. 

Ha ! {He plays again, but, after rather a longer 
time, again stops.) No, no J 'tis the buttons are 
wanting, Hinda, the buttons. This tune feeds 
chiefly on buttons — a greedy tune. It wants one, 
two, three, four, five, six. Good ! 

{After Hinda has given up the buttons, and 
Juan has laid lhe7n down one by one, he 
begins to play again, going on longer 
than before, so that the dancers become 
excited by the movement. Then he 
stops. ) 

Juan. 

Ah, Hita, it is the belt, and, Tralla, the rosettes 
— both are wanting. I see the tune will not go 
on without them. 

(Hita and Tralla take off the belt and ro- 
settes, and lay them down quickly, being 
fired by the dancing, and eager for the 
music. All the articles lie by Juan's 
side on the ground. ) 

Juan. 

Good, good, my docile wild-cats ! Now I think 
the tunes are all alive again. Now you may 
dance and sing too. Hinda, my little screamer, 
lead off with the song I taught you, and let us 
see if the tune will go right on from beginning 
to end. 

(He plays. The dance begins again, Hinda 
singing. All the other boys and girl 
join in the chorus ', and all at last dance 
wildly.) 



176 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



SONG. 

All things journey : sun and moon, 
Morning ; noon, and afternoon , 

Night and all her stars : 
1 * Twixt the east and western bars 
Round they journey \ 
Come and go ! 
We go with them ! 
For to roam and ever roam 
Is the ZincalVs loved ho?nc. 

Earth is good, the hillside breaks 
By the ashen roots and makes 

Hungry nostrils glad : 
T/ien 7ve run till we are mad, 

Like the horses, 

And we cry, 

None shall catch us ! 
Swift winds wing us — we are free — 
Drink the air — we Ztncali I 

Falls the snow : the pine-branch splits 
Call the fire out, see it flit, 

Through the dry' leaves run, 
Spread and glow, and make a sun 
In the dark tent : 

O warm dark I 
Warm as conies / 
Strong fire loves us, we are warm I 
Who the Zlncali shall harm ? 

Onward journey : fires are spent ; 
Sunward, sunward! lift the lent, 

Run before the rain, 
Through the pass, along the plain* 



THE SPANISH GYPSY, 177 

Hurry, hurry, 

Lift us, wind! 

Like the horses. 
For to roam and ever roam 
Is the ZlncaWs loved home. 

(When the datue is at its height, HlNDA 
breaks away from the rest, and da?ices 
round Juan, who is now standing. As 
he turns a little to watch her movement, 
some of the boys skip toward the feather, 
aigrette, etc. , snatch them up, and run 
away, swiftly followed by Hita, Tral- 
la, andtJie rest. Hinda, as she turns 
again, sees them, screams, and falls in 
her whirling ; but immediately gets up, 
and rushes after them, still screaming 
with rage.) 

Juan. 

Santiago ! these imps get bolder. Haha ! Se- 
flora Hinda, this finishes your lesson in ethics. 
You have seen the advantage of giving up stolen 
goods. Now you see the ugliness of thieving 
when practised by others. That fable of mine 
about the tunes was excellently devised. I feel 
like an ancient sage instructing our lisping an- 
cestors. My memory will descend as the Orpheus 
of Gypsies. But I must prepare a rod for those 
rascals. I'll bastinado them with prickly pears. 
It seems to me these needles will have a sound 
moral teaching in them. 

( While Juan takes a knife from his belt, 
and surveys a bush of the prickly pear, 
Hinda returns.) 



178 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Juan. 
Pray, Sefiora, why do you fume ? Did you 
want to steal my ornaments again yourself ? 

Hinda {sobbing). 
No ; I thought you would give them me back 
again. 

Juan. 
What, did you want the tunes to die again 
Do you like finery better than dancing ? 

Hinda. 
Oh, that was a tale ! I shall tell tales too, 
when I want to get anything I can't steai. And 
I know what I will do. I shall tell the boys I've 
found some little foxes, and I will never say 
where they are till they give me back the feather ! 

{She runs off again.) 
Juan. 
Hem ! the disciple seems to seize the mode 
sooner than the matter. Teaching virtue with this 
prickly pear may only teach the youngsters to use 
a new weapon ; as your teaching orthodoxy with 
fagots may only bring up a fashion of roasting. 
Dios ! my remarks grow too pregnant — my wits 
get a plethora by solitary feeding on the produce 
of my own wisdom. 

(As he puts up his knife again, Hinda 
comes running back, and crying % ' ' Our 
Queen! our Queen /" Juan adjusts 
his garments and his lute, white H JNDA 
turns to meet Fedalma, who ivears a 
Moorish dress, her dark hair hanging 
round her in plaits, a white turban on 
her head, a dagger by her side. She 
carries a scarf on her left arm,, which 
she holds up as a shade.) 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 179 

Fed alma (patting Hinda's head). 

How now, wild one ? You are hot and pant- 
ing. Go to my tent, and help Nouna to plait 
reeds. 

(HlNDA kisses Fedalma's hand, and runs 
off. Fed alma advances toward Juan, 
uho kneels to take up the edge of her cy- 
mar, and kisses it. ) 

Juan. 

How is it with you, lady ? You look sad. 

Fed alma. 

Oh, I am sick at heart. The eye of day, 
The insistent summer sun, seems pitiless, 
Shining in all the barren crevices 
Of weary life, leaving no shade, no dark, 
Where I may dream that hidden waters lie ; 
As pitiless as to some shipwrecked man, 
Who gazing from his narrow shoal of sand 
On the wide unspecked round of blue and blue 
Sees that full light is errorless despair. 
The insects' hum that slurs the silent dark 
Startles and seems to cheat me, as the tread 
Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher 
Who holds her heart and waits to hear them 

pause, 
And hears them never pause, but pass and die. 
Music sweeps by me as a messenger 
Carrying a message that is not for me. 
The very sameness of the hills and sky 
Is obduracy, and the lingering hours 
Wait round me dumbly, like superfluous slaves, 
Of whom I want nought but the secret news 
They are forbid to tell. And, Juan, you — 
You, too, are cruel- — would be over-wise 



180 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

In judging your friend's needs, and choose to 

hide 
Something I crave to know. 

Juan. 



Fedalma. 



I, lady? 

You. 



Juan. 

I never had the virtue to hide aught, 
Save what a man is whipped for publishing. 
I'm no more reticent than the voluble air — 
Dote on disclosure — never could contain 
The latter half of all my sentences, 
But for the need to utter the beginning. 
My lust to tell is so importunate 
That it abridges every other vice, 
And makes me temperate for want of time. 
I dull sensation in the haste to say 
'Tis this or that, and choke report with surmise* 
Judge, then, dear lady, if I could be mute 
When but a glance of yours had bid me speak. 

Fedalma. 
Nay, sing such falsities ! — you mock me worse 
By speech that gravely seems to ask belief. 
You are but babbling in a part you play 
To please my father. Oh, 'tis well meant, say 

you — 
Pity for woman's weakness. Take my thanks. 

Juan. 
Thanks angrily bestowed are red-hot coin 
Burning your servant's palm. 

Fedalma. 

Deny it not, 
You know how many leagues this camp of ours 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. i8l 

Lies from Bedmar — what mountains lie be- 

tween — 
Could tell me if you would about the Duke — 
That he is comforted, sees how he gains 
Losing the Zincala, finds now how slight 
The thread Fedalma made in that rich web, 
A Spanish noble's life. No, that is false ! 
He never would think lightly of our love. 
Some evil has befallen him — he's slain — 
Has sought for danger and has beckoned death 
Because I made all life seem treachery. 
Tell me the worst — be merciful — no worst, 
Against the hideous painting of my fear, 
Would not show like a better. 

Juan. 

If I speak, 
Will you believe your slave ? For truth is 

scant ; 
And where the appetite is still to hear 
And not believe, falsehood would stint it less. 
How say you ? Does your hunger's fancy choose 
The meagre fact ? 

Fedalma {seating herself on the ground). 

Yes, yes, the truth, dear Juan. 
Sit now, and tell me all. 

Juan. 

That all is nought. 
I can unleash my fancy if you wish 
And hunt for phantoms : shoot an airy guess 
And bring down airy likelihood — some lie 
Masked cunningly to look like royal truth 
And cheat the shooter, while King Fact goes 

free ; 
Or else some image of reality 
That doubt will handle and reject as false. 



1 82 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

A.s for conjecture — I can thread the sky 
Like any swallow, but, if you insist 
On knowledge that would guide a pair of feet 
Right to Bedmar, across the Moorish bounds, 
A mule that dreams of stumbling over stones 
Is better stored. 

Fedalma. 

And you have gathered nought 
About the border wars ? No news, no hint 
Of any rumors that concern the Duke — 
Rumors kept from me by my father ? 

Juan. 

None. 
Your father trusts no secret to the echoes. 
Of late his movements have been hid from all 
Save those few hundred chosen Gypsy breasts 
He carries with him. Think you he's a man 
To let his projects slip from out his belt, 
Then whisper him who haps to find them strayed 
To be so kind as keep his counsel well ? 
Why, if he found me knowing aught too much, 
He would straight gag or strangle me, and say, 
' ' Poor hound ! it was a pity that his bark 
Could chance to mar my plans : he loved my 

daughter — 
The idle hound had nought to do but love, 
So followed to the battle and got crushed." 

Fedalma (holding out her hand, which Ju AN 
kisses). 

Good Juan, i could have no nobler friend. 
You'd ope your veins and let your life-blood out 
To save another's pain, yet hide the deed 
With jesting — say, 'twas merest accident, 
A sportive scratch that went by chance too deep— 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 183 

And die content with men's slight thoughts of 

you, 
Finding your glory in another's joy. 

Juan. 
Dub not my likings virtues, lest they get 
A drug-like taste, and breed a nausea. 
Honey's not sweet, commended as cathartic. 
Such names are parchment labels upon gems 
Hiding their color. What is lovely seen 
Priced in a tariff ? — lapis lazuli, 
Such bulk, so many drachmas : amethysts 
Quoted at so much ; sapphires higher still. 
The stone like solid heaven in its blueness 
Is what I care for, not its name or price. 
So, if I live or die to serve my friend, 
'Tis for my love — 'tis for my friend alone, 
And not for any rate that friendship bears 
In heaven or on earth. Nay, I romance — 
I talk of Roland and the ancient peers. 
In me 'tis hardly friendship, only lack 
Of a substantial self that holds a weight ; 
So I kiss larger things and roll with them. 

Fedalma. 
Oh, you will never hide your soul from me ; 
I've seen the jewel's flash, and know 'tis there, 
Muffle it as you will. That foam-like talk 
Will not wash out a fear which blots the good 
Your presence brings me. Oft I'm pierced afresh 
Through all the pressure of my selfish griefs 
By thought of you. It was a rash resolve 
Made you disclose yourself when you kept watch 
About the terrace wall : — your pity leaped, 
Seeing alone my ills and not your loss, 
Self-doomed to exile. Juan, you must repent. 
'Tis not in nature that resolve, which feeds 



1 84 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

On strenuous actions, should not pine and die 
In these long days of empty listlessness. 

Juan. 

Repent? Not I. Repentance is the weight 

Of indigested meals ta'en yesterday. 

'Tis for large animals that gorge on prey, 

Not for a honey-sipping butterfly. 

I am a thing of rhythm and redondillas— 

The momentary rainbow on the spray 

Made by the thundering torrent of men's lives : 

No matter whether I am here or there ; m 

I still catch sunbeams. And in Africa, 

Where melons and all fruits, they say, grow large, 

Fables are real, and the apes polite, 

A poet, too, may prosper past belief : 

I shall grow epic, like the Florentine, 

And sing the founding of our infant state, 

Sing the new Gypsy Carthage. 

Fedalma. 

Africa 
Would we were there ! Under another heaven, 
In lands where neither love nor memory 
Can plant a selfish hope — in lands so far 
I should not seem to see the outstretched arms 
That seek me, or to hear the voice that calls. 
I should feel distance only and despair ; 
So rest forever from the thought of bliss. 
And wear my weight of life's great chain un- 

struggling. 
Juan, if I could know he would forget — 
Nay, not forget, forgive me — be content 
That I forsook him for no joy, but sorrow, 
For sorrow chosen rather than a joy 
That destiny made base ! Then he would taste 
No bitterness in sweet, sad memory, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 185 

And I should live unblemished in his thought, 
Hallowed like her who dies an unwed bride. 
Our words have wings, but fly not where we would. 
Could mine but reach him, Juan ! 

Juan. 

Speak the wish — 
My feet have wings — I'll be your Mercury. 
I fear no shadowed perils by the way. 
No man will wear the sharpness of his sword 
On me. Nay, I'm a herald of the Muse, 
Sacred for Moors and Spaniards. I will go — 
Will fetch you tidings for an amulet. 
But stretch not hope too strongly toward that 

mark 
As issue of my wandering. Given, I cross 
Safely the Moorish border, reach Bedmar : 
Fresh counsels may prevail there, and the Duke 
Being absent in the field, I may be trapped. 
Men who are sour at missing larger game 
May wing a chattering sparrow for revenge. 
It is a chance no further worth the note 
Than as a warning, lest you feared worse ill 
If my return were stayed. I might be caged ; 
They would not harm me else. Untimely death, 
The red auxiliary of the skeleton. 
Has too much work on hand to think of me ; 
Or, if he cares to slay me, I shall fall 
Choked with a grape-stone for economy. 
The likelier chance is that I go and come, 
Bringing you comfort back. 

Fedalma (starts from her seat and walks to a 
little distance \ standing a few moments with het 
back toward Juan, then she turns round 'quickly \ 
and goes toward him). 

No, Juan, no ! 

Those yearning words came from a soul infirm 



1 86 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Crying and struggling at the pain of bonds 
Which yet it would not loosen. He knows all- 
All that he needs to know : I said farewell : 
I stepped across the cracking earth and knew 
'Twould yawn behind me. I must walk right on. 
No, I will not win aught by risking you : 
That risk would poison my poor hope. Besides, 
'Twere treachery in me : my father wills 
That we — all here — should rest within this camp. 
If I can never live, like him, on faith 
In glorious morrows, I am resolute. 
While he treads painfully with stillest step 
And beady brow, pressed 'neath the weight of 

arms, 
Shall I, to ease my fevered restlessness, 
Raise peevish moans, shattering that fragile 

silence ? 
No ! On the close-thronged spaces of the earth 
A battle rages : Fate has carried me 
'Mid the thick arrows : I will keep my stand — 
Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my breast 
To pierce another. Oh, 'tis written large 
The thing I have to do. But you, dear Juan, 
Renounce, endure, are brave, unurged by aught 
Save the sweet overflow of your good will. 

(She seats herself again.) 
Juan. 
Nay, I endure nought worse than napping sheep 
When nimble birds uproot a fleecy lock 
To line their nest with. See ! your bondsman, 

Queen, 
The minstrel of your court, is featherless ; 
Deforms your presence by a moulting garb ; 
Shows like a roadside bush culled of its buds. 
Yet, if your graciousness will not disdain 
A poor plucked songster — shall he sing to you ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 187 

Some lay of afternoons — some ballad strain 
Of those who ached once but are sleeping now 
Under the sun-warmed flowers ? 'Twill cheat the 
time. 

Fedalma. 

Thanks, Juan — later, when this hour is passed. 
My soul is clogged with self ; it could not float 
On with the pleasing sadness of your song. 
Leave me in this green spot, but come again, — 
Come with the lengthening shadows. 

Juan. 

Then your slave 
Will go to chase the robbers. Queen, farewell ! 

Fedalma. 
Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness ! 

[While Juan sped along the stream, there came 
From the dark tents a ringing joyous shout 
That thrilled Fedalma with a summons grave 
Yet welcome, too. Straightway she rose and 

stood, 
Ail languor banished, with a soul suspense, 
Like one who waits high presence, listening. 
Was it a message, or her father's self 
That made the camp so glad ? 

It was himself ! 
She saw him now advancing, girt with arms 
That seemed like idle trophies hung for show 
Beside the weight and fire of living strength 
That made his frame. He glanced with absent 

triumph, 
As one who conquers in some field afar 
And bears off unseen spoil. But nearing her, 
His terrible eyes intense sent forth new rays— 
A sudden sunshine where the lightning was 
'Twixt meeting dark. All tenderly he laid 



1 88 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

His hand upon her shoulder ; tenderly 
His kiss upon her brow. ] 

Zarca. 

My royal daughter ! 

Fed alma. 
Father, I joy to see your safe return. 

Zarca. 
Nay, I but stole the time, as hungry men 
Steal from the morrow's meal, made a forced 

march, 
Left Hassan as my watchdog, all to see 
My daughter, and to feed her famished hope 
With news of promise. 

Fedalma. 

Is the task achieved 
That was to be the herald of our flight ? 

Zarca. 
Not outwardly, but to my inward vision 
Things are achieved when they are well begun. 
The perfect archer calls the deer his own 
While yet the shaft is whistling. His keen eye 
Never sees failure, sees the mark alone. 
You have heard nought, then — had no messenger? 

Fedalma. 
I, father ? no : each quiet day has fled 
Like the same moth, returning with slow wing, 
And pausing in the sunshine. 

Zarca. 

It is well. 
You shall not long count days in weariness. 
Ere the full moon has waned again to new, 
We shall reach Almeria : Berber ships 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 189 

Will take its for their freight, and we shall go 
With plenteous spoil, not stolen, bravely won 
By service done on Spaniards. Do you shrink ? 
Are you aught less than a true Zincala ? 

Fedalma. 

No ; but I am more. The Spaniards fostered 
me. 

Zarca. 

They stole you first, and reared you for the 

flames. 
I found you, rescued you, that you might live 
A Zincala's life ; I saved you from their doom. 
Your bridal bed had been the rack. 

Fedalma {in a low tone). 

They meant — 
To seize me ? — ere he came ? 

Zarca. 

Yes, I know all. 
They found your chamber empty. 

Fedalma {eagerly). 

Then you know — 
(checking herself?) 
Father, my soul would be less laggard, fed 
With fuller trust. 

Zarca. 
My daugnter, I must keep 
The Arab's secret. Arabs are our friends. 
Grappling for life with Christians who lay waste 
Granada's valleys, and with devilish hoofs 
Trample the young green corn, with devilish play 
Fell blossomed trees, and tear up well-pruned 
vines : 



1 90 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Cruel as tigers to the vanquished brave, 

They wring out gold by oaths they mean to 

break ; 
Take pay for pity and are pitiless ; 
Then tinkle bells above the desolate earth 
And praise their monstrous gods, supposed to 

love 
The flattery of liars. I will strike 
The full-gorged dragon. You, my child, must 

watch 
The battle with a heart, not fluttering 
But duteous, firm-weighted by resolve. 
Choosing between two lives, like her who holds 
A dagger which must pierce one of two breasts, 
And one of them her father's. You divine — 
I speak not closely, but in parables ; 
Put one for many. 

Fed ALMA (collecting herself and looking firm I) 
at Zarca). 

Then it is your will 
That I ask nothing ? 

Zarca. 
You shall know enough 
To trace the sequence of the seed and flower. 
El Zagai trusts me, rates my counsel high : 
He, knowing I have won a grant of lands 
Within the Berber's realm, wills me to be 
The tongue of his good cause in Africa, 
So gives us furtherance in our pilgrimage 
For service hoped, as well as service done 
In that great feat of which I am the eye, 
And my five hundred Gypsies the best arm. 
More, I am charged by other noble Moors 
With messages of weight to Telems&n. 
Ha, your eye flashes. Are you glad ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 191 

Fed alma, 

Yes, glad 
That men can greatly trust a Zincalo. 

Zarca. 

Why, fighting for dear life men choose then 

swords 
For cutting only, not for ornament. 
What nought but Nature gives, man takes per- 
force 
Where she bestows it, though in vilest place. 
Can he compress invention out of pride. 
Make heirship do the work of muscle, sail 
Toward great discoveries with a pedigree ? 
Sick men ask cures, and Nature serves not hers 
Daintily as a feast. A blacksmith once 
Founded a dynasty, and raised on high 
The leathern apron over armies spread 
Between the mountains like a lake of steel. 

Fed ALMA {bitterly). 

To be contemned, then, is fair augury. 
That pledge of future good at least is ours 

Zarca. 

Let men contemn us : 'tis such blind contempt 
That, leaves the winged broods to thrive in 

warmth 
Unheeded, till they fill the air like storms 
So we shall thrive — still darkly shall draw force 
Into a new and multitudinous life 
That likeness fashions to community, 
Mother divine of customs, faith and laws. 
'Tis ripeness, 'tis fame's zenith that kills hope. 
Huge oaks are dying, forests yet to come 
Lie in the twigs and rotten-seeming seeds. 



1 92 THE SPANISH GYPSY 

FEDALMA. 

And our wild Zincali ? 'Neath their rough husk 
Can you discern such seed ? You said our band 
Was the best arm of some hard enterprise ; 
They give out sparks of virtue, then, and show 
There's metal in their earth ? 

Zarca. 

Ay, metal fine 
In my brave Gypsies. Not the lithest Moor 
Has lither limbs for scaling, keener eye 
To mark the meaning of the furthest speck 
That tells of change ; and they are disciplined 
By faith in me, to such obedience 
As needs no spy. xMy scalers and my scouts 
Are to the Moorish force they're leagued withal 
As bow-string to the bow ; while I their chief 
Command the enterprise and guide the will 
Of Moorish captains, as the pilot guides 
With eye-instructed hand the passive helm. 
For high device is still the highest force. 
And he who holds the secret of the wheel 
May make the rivers do what work he would. 
With thoughts impalpable we clutch men's souls v 
Weaken the joints of armies, make them fly 
Like dust and leaves before the viewless wind. 
Tell me what's mirrored in the tiger's heart, 
I'll rule that too. 

Fedalma (wrought to a glow of admiration). 
O my imperial father !• 
'Tis where there breathes a mighty soul like yours 
That men's contempt is of good augury. 

Zarca (seizing both Fedalma's hands, and 
looking at her searchingly). 
And you, my daughter, what are you — if not 
The Zincalo's child ? Say, does not his great hope 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



193 



Thrill in your veins like shouts of victory ? 

'Tis a vile life that like a garden pool 

Lies stagnant in the round of personal loves ; 

That has no ear save for the tickling lute 

Set to small measures — deaf to all the beats 

Of that large music rolling o'er the world : 

A miserable, petty, low-roofed life, 

That knows the mighty orbits of the skies 

Through nought save light or dark in its own 

cabin. 
The very brutes will feel the force of kind 
And move together, gathering a new soul — 
The soul of multitudes. Say now, my child, 
You will not falter, not look back and long 
For unfledged ease in some soft alien nest. 
The crane with outspread wing that heads the file 
Pauses not, feels no backward impulses : 
Behind it summer was, and is no more ; 
Before it lies the summer it will reach 
Or perish in mid-ocean. You no less 
Must feel the force sublime of growing life. 
New thoughts are urgent as the growth of wings ; 
The widening vision is imperious 
As higher members bursting the worm's sheath. 
You cannot grovel in the worm's delights : 
You must take winged pleasures, winged pains. 
Are you not steadfast ? Will you live or die 
For aught below your royal heritage ? 
To him who hol-ds the flickering brief torch 
That lights a beacon for the perishing, 
Aught else is crime. Would you let drop the 

torch ? 

Fedalma. 

Father, my soul is weak, the mist of tears 
Still rises to my eyes, and hides the goal 
Which to your undimmed sight is fixed and clear. 



194 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

But if I cannot plant resolve on hope, 

It will stand firm on certainty of woe. 

I choose the ill that is most like to end 

With my poor being. Hopes have precarious life. 

They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off 

In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness. 

But faithfulness can feed on suffering, 

And knows no disappointment. Trust in me ! 

If it were needed, this poor trembling hand 

Should grasp the torch — strive not to let it fall 

Though it were burning down close to my flesh, 

No beacon lighted yet : through the damp dark 

I should still hear the cry of gasping swimmers. 

Father, I will be true ! 

Zarca. 

I trust that word. 
And, for your sadness — you are young — the bruise 
Will leave no mark. The worst of misery 
Is when a nature framed for noblest things 
Condemns itself in youth to petty joys, 
And, sore athirst for air, breathes scanty life 
Gasping from out the shallows. You are saved 
From such poor doubleness. The life we choose 
Breathes high, and sees a full arched firmament. 
Our deeds shall speak like rock-hewn messages, 
Teaching great purpose to the distant time. 
Now I must hasten back. I shall but speak 
To Nadar of the order he must keep 
In setting watch and victualling. The stars 
And the young moon must see me at my post. 
Nay, rest you here. Farewell, my younger self — 
Strong-hearted daughter ! Shall I live in you 
When the earth covers me ? 

Fedalma. 

My father, death 
Should give your will divineness, make it strong 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 195 

With the beseechings of a mighty soul 

That left its work unfinished. Kiss me now : 

( They embrace, and she adds tremulously 
as they part ,) 
And when you see fair hair, be pitiful. 

[Exit Zarca. 

(Fed alma seats herself on the bank, leans 
her head forward, and covers her face 
with her drapery. While she is seated 
, thus, Hind a comes from the bank, with 
a branch of musk roses in her hand. 
Seeing Fedalma with head bent and 
covered, she pauses, and begins to move 
on tiptoe?) 

HlNDA. 

Our Queen ! Can she be crying ? There she sits 
As I did every day when my dog Saad 
Sickened and yelled, and seemed to yell so loud 
After we buried him, I oped his grave. 

{She comes forward on tiptoe, kneels at Fe- 
D alma's feet, and embraces them. 
Fedalma uncovers her head.) 

Fedalma. 
Hinda ! what is it ? 

HlNDA. 

Queen, a branch of roses — 
So sweet, you'll love to smell them. 'Twas the 

last. 
I climbed the bank to get it before Tralla, 
And slipped and scratched my arm. But I don't 

mind. 
You love the roses — so do I. I wish 
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain 



196 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

From off the shaken bush. Why will it not ? 
Then all the valley would be pink and white 
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light 
As feathers, smelling sweet ; and it would be 
Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once ! 
Over the sea, Queen, where we soon shall go, 
Will it rain roses ? 

Fedalma. 

No, my prattler, no ! 
It never will rain roses : when we want 
To have more roses we must plant more trees. 
But you want nothing, little one — the world 
Just suits you as it suits the tawny squirrels. 
Come, you want nothing. 

HlNDA. 

Yes, I want more berries- 
Red ones — to wind about my neck and arms 
When I am married — on my ankles too 
I want to wind red berries, and on my head. 

Fedalma. 
Who is it you are fond of ? Tell me, now. 

HlNDA. 

O Queen, you know ! It could be no one else 

But Ismael. He catches all the birds, 

Knows where the speckled fish are, scales the 

rocks, 
And sings and dances with me when I like. 
How should I marry and not marry him ? 

Fedalma. 

Should you have loved him, had he been a Moor, 
Or white Castilian ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 197 

HlNDA {starting to her feet, then kneeling again). 

Are you angry, Queen ? 
Say why you will think shame of your poor 

Hinda? 
She'd sooner be a rat and hang on thorns 
To parch until the wind had scattered her, 
Than be an outcast, spit at by her tribe. 

Fed alma. 
I think no evil — am not angry, child. 
But would you part from Ismae'l ? leave him now 
If your chief bade you — said it was for good 
To all your tribe that you must part from him ? 

Hinda {giving a sharp cry). 
Ah, will he say so ? 

Fedalma {almost fierce in her earnestness). 
Nay, child, answer me. 
Could you leave Ismael ? get into a boat 
And see the waters widen 'twixt you two 
Till all was water and you saw him not, 
And knew that you would never see him more ? 
If 'twas your chief's command, and if he said 
Your tribe would all be slaughtered, die of plague, 
Of famine — madly drink each other's blood . . . 

Hinda {trembling). 
O Queen, if it is so, tell Ismael. 

Fedalma. 
You would obey, then ? part from him forever ? 

Hinda. 
How could we live else ? With our brethren 

lost ?— 
No marriage feast ? The day would turn to dark 
A Zincala cannot live without her tribe. 



198 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

I must obey ! Poor Ismael — poor Hinda ] 
But will it ever be so cold and dark ? 
Oh. I would sit upon the rocks and cry, 
And cry so long that I could cry no more : 
Then I should go to sleep. 

Fed alma. 

No, Hinda, no! 
Thou never shalt be called to part from him. 
I will have berries for thee, red and black, 
And I will be so glad to see thee glad, 
That earth will seem to hold enough of joy 
To outweigh all the pangs of those who part. 
Be comforted, bright eyes. See, I will tie 
These roses in a crown, for thee to wear. 

Hinda {clapping her hands, while Fed alma 
puts the roses on her head). 
Oh, I'm as glad as many little foxes — 
I will find Ismael, and tell him all. 

{She runs off.) 

Fed alma {alone). 
She has the strength I lack. Within her world 
The dial has not stirred since first she woke : 
No changing light has made the shadows die, 
And taught her trusting soul sad difference. 
For her, good, right, and law are all summed up 
In what is possible : life is one web 
Where love, joy, kindred, and obedience 
Lie fast and even, in one warp and woof 
With thirst and drinking, hunger, food, and 

sleep. 
She knows no struggles, sees no double path : 
Her fate is freedom, for her will is one 
With her own people's law, the only law 
She ever knew. For me — I have fire within, 
But on my will there falls the chilling snow 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 199 

Of thoughts that come as subtly as soft flakes. 

Yet press at last with hard and icy weight. 

1 could be firm, could give myself the wrench 

And walk erect, hiding my life-long wound, 

If I but saw the fruit of all my pain 

With that strong vision which commands the 

soul, 
And makes great awe the monarch of desire. 
But now I totter, seeing no far goal : 
I tread the rocky pass, and pause and grasp, 
Guided by flashes. When my father comes, 
And breathes into my soul his generous hope — 
By his own greatness making life seem great, 
As the clear heavens bring sublimity, 
And show earth larger, spanned by that blue 

vast — 
Resolve is strong : I can embrace my sorrow, 
Nor nicely weigh the fruit ; possessed with need 
Solely to do the noblest, though it failed — 
Though lava streamed upon my breathing deed 
And buried it in night and barrenness. 
But soon the glow dies out, the trumpet strain 
That vibrated as strength through all my limbs 
Is heard no longer ; over the wide scene 
There's nought but chill gray silence, or the hum 
And fitful discord of a vulgar world. 
Then I sink helpless — sink into the arms 
Of all sweet memories, and dream of bliss : 
See looks that penetrate like tones ; hear tones 
That flash looks with them. Even now I feel 
Soft airs enwrap me, as if yearning rays 
Of some far ^presence touched me with their 

warmth 
And brought a tender murmuring . . . 

[While she mused, 
A figure cams from out the olive trees 



200 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

That bent close-whispering r twixt the parted hills 
Beyond the crescent of thick cactus : paused 
At sight of her ; then slowly forward moved 
With careful steps, and gently said, '* Fed alma !'* 
Fearing lest-fancy had enslaved her sense, 
She quivered, rose, but turned not. Soon again : 
44 Fed alma, it is Silva ! " Then she turned. 
He, with bared head and arms entreating, 
beamed { 

Like morning on her. Vision held her still 
One moment, then with gliding motion swift, 
Inevitable as the melting stream's, 
She found her rest within his circling arms.] 

Fedalma. 
O love, you are living, and believe in me ! 

Don Silva. 
Once more we are together. Wishing dies — 
Stifled with bliss. 

Fedalma. 

You did not hate me, then — 
Think me an ingrate — think my love was small 
That I forsook you ? 

Don Silva. 

Dear, I trusted you 
As holy men trust God. You could do nought 
That was not pure and loving — though the deed 
Might pierce me unto death. You had less 

trust, 
Since you suspected mine. 'Twas wicked doubt 

Fedalma. 
Nay, when I saw you hating me, the fault 
Seemed in my lot — my bitter birthright — hers 
On whom you lavished all your wealth of love 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 2 0I 

As price of nought but sorrow. Then I said, 
** 'Tis better so. He will be happier !" 
But soon that thought, struggling to be a hope, 
Would end in tears. 

Don Silva. 

It was a cruel thought. 
Happier ! True misery is not begun 
Until I cease to love thee. 

Fedalma. 

Silva ! 

Don Silva. 

Mine ! 
( They stand a moment or two in silence. ) 

Fedalma. 

I thought I had so much to tell you, love — 
Long eloquent stories — how it all befell — 
The solemn message, calling me away 
To awful spousals, where my own dead joy, 
A conscious ghost, looked on and saw me wed. 

Don Silva. 

Oh, that grave speech would cumber our quick 
souls 

Like bells that waste the moments with their loud- 
ness. 

Fedalma. 

And if it all were said, 'twould end in this, 
That I still loved you when I fled away. 
'Tis no more wisdom than the little birds 
Make known by their soft twitter when they feel 
Each other's heart beat. 



202 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Don Silva. 

All the deepest things 
We now say with our eyes and meeting- pulse : 
Our voices need but prattle. 

Fedalma. 

I forget 
All the drear days of thirst in this one draught. 

(Again they are silent for a few moments.) 
But tell me how you came ? Where are your 

guards ? 
Is there no risk? And now I look at you, 
This garb is strange . . . 

Don Silva. 

I came alone. 

Fedalma. 

Alone ? 
Don Silva. 
Yes — fled in secret. There was no way else 
To find you safely. 

Fedalma {letting one hand fall and moving a 
little from him with a look of sudden terror^ 
while he clasps her more firmly by the othet 
arm). 

Silva ! 

Don Silva. 

It is nought. 
Enough that I am here. Now we will cling. 
What power shall hinder us ? You left me once 
To set your father free. That task is done, 
And you are mine again. I have braved all 
That I might find you, see your father, win 
His furtherance in bearing you away 
To some safe refuge. Are we not betrothed ? 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 203 

Fedalma. 

Oh, I am trembling 'neath the rush of thoughts 
That come like griefs at morning — look at me 
With awful faces, from the vanishing haze 
That momently had hidden them. 

Don Silva. 

What thoughts ? 
Fedalma. 

Forgotten burials. There lies a grave 
Between this visionary present and the past. 
Our joy is dead, and only smiles on us 
A loving shade from out the place of tombs. 

Don Silva. 

Your love is faint, else aught that parted us 
Would seem but superstition. Love supreme 
Defies dream-terrors — risks avenging fires. 
I have risked all things. But your love is faint. 

Fedalma {retreating a little, but keeping his 

hand. 
Silva, if now between us came a sword, 
Severed my arm, and left our two hands clasped, 
This poor maimed arm would feel the clasp till 

death. 
What parts us is a sword . . . 

(Zarca has been advancing in the back- 
ground. He has drawn his sword, 
and now thrusts the naked blade be- 
tween them. Don Silva lets go Fedal- 
ma' s hand, and grasps his sword. 
Fedalma, startled at first, stands 
firmly, as if prepared to interpose, 
between her Father arid the Duke.) 



204 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Zarca. 

Ay, 'tis a sword 
That parts the Spaniard and the Zincala : 
A sword that was baptized in Christian blood, 
When once a band, cloaking with Spanish law 
Their brutal rapine, would have butchered us, 
And outraged then our women. 

(Resting the point of his sword on the ground.) 

My lord Duke ? 
I was a guest within your fortress once 
Against my will ; had entertainment too — 
Much like a galley-slave's. Pray, have you 

sought 
The Zincalo's camp, to find a fit return 
For that Castilian courtesy ? or rather 
To make amends for all our prisoned toil 
By free bestowal of your presence here ? 

Don Silva. 

Chief, I have brought no scorn to meet your 

scorn. 
I came because love urged me — that deep love 
I bear to her whom you call daughter — her 
Whom I reclaim as my betrothed bride. 

Zarca. 

Doubtless you bring for final argument 
Your men-at-arms who will escort your bride ? 

Don Silva. 

I came alone. The only force I bring 
Is tenderness. Nay, I will trust besides 
In all the pleadings of a father's care 
To wed his daughter as her nurture bids, 
And for your tribe — whatever purposed good 
Your thoughts may cherish, I will make secure 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 205 

With the strong surety of a noble's power : 
My wealth shall be your treasury. 

Zarca (with irony). 

My thanks ! 
To me you offer liberal price ; for her 
Your love's beseeching- will be force supreme. 
She will go with you as a willing slave, 
Will give a word of parting to her father, 
Wave farewells to her tribe, then turn and say, 
4i Now, my lord, I am nothing but your bride ; 
I am quite culled, have neither root nor trunk, 
Now wear me with your plume !" 

Don Silva. 

Yours is the wrong 
Feigning in me one thought of her below 
The highest homage, I would make my rank 
The pedestal of her worth ; a noble s sword, 
A noble's honor, her defence ; his love 
The life-long sanctuary of her womanhood. 

Zarca. 

I tell you, were you King of Aragon, 

And won my daughter's hand, your higher rank 

Would blacken her dishonor. 'Twere excuse 

If you were beggared, homeless, spit upon, 

And so made even with her people's lot ; 

For then she would be lured by want, not wealth, 

To be a wife amongst an alien race 

To whom her tribe owes curses. 

Don Silva. 

Such blind hate 
Is fit for beasts of prey, but not for men. 
My hostile acts against you, should but count 
As ignorant strokes against a friend unknown ; 
And for the wrongs inflicted on your tribe 



206 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

By Spanish edicts or the cruelty 
Of Spanish vassals, am I criminal ? 
Love comes to cancel all ancestral hate, 
Subdues all heritage, proves that in mankind 
Union is deeper than division. 

Zarca. 

Ay, 

Such love is common : I have seen it oft — 

Seen many women rend the sacred ties 

That bind them in high fellowship with men, 

Making them mothers of a people's virtue : 

Seen them so levelled to a handsome steed 

That yesterday was Moorish property, 

To-day is Christian — wears new-fashioned gear, 

Neighs to new feeders, and will prance alike 

Under all banners, so the banner be 

A master's who caresses. Such light change 

You call conversion ; but we Zincali call 

Conversion infamy. Our people's faith 

Is faithfulness ; not the rote-learned beliei 

That we are heaven's highest favorites, 

But the resolve that being most forsaken 

Among the sons of men, we will be true 

Each to the other, and our common lot. 

You Christians burn men for their heresy 

Our vilest heretic is that Zincala 

Who, choosing ease, forsakes her people's woes. 

The dowry of my daughter is to be 

Chief woman of her tribe, and rescue it. 

A bride with such a dowry has no match 

Among the subjects of that Catholic Queen 

Who would have Gypsies swept into the sea 

Or else would have them gibbeted. 

Don Silva. 

And you, 
Fedalma's father — you who claim the dues 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 207 

Of fatherhood — will offer up her youth 

To mere grim idols of your phantasy ! 

Worse than all Pagans, with no oracle 

To bid you murder, no sure good to win, 

Will sacrifice your daughter — to no god, 

But to a ravenous fire within your soul, 

Mad hopes, blind hate, that like possessing fiends 

Shriek at a name ! This sweetest virgin, reared 

As garden flowers, to give the sordid world 

Glimpses of perfectness, you snatch and thrust 

On dreary wilds ; in visions mad, proclaim 

Semiramis of Gypsy wanderers ; 

Doom, with a broken arrow in her heart, 

To wait for death 'mid squalid savages* : 

For what ? You would be saviour of your tribe ; 

So said Fedalma's letter ; rather say, 

You have the will to save by ruling men, 

But first to rule ; and with that flinty will 

You cut your way, though the first cut you give 

Gash your child's bosom. 

( While Don Silva has been speaking, with 
growing passion, Fed ALMA has placed 
herself between hii?i and her father.) 

ZARCA (with calm irony). 

You are loud, my lord \ 
You only are the reasonable man ; 
You have a heart, I none. Fedalma's good 
Is what you see, you care for ; while I seek 
No good, not even my own, urged on by nought 
But hellish hunger, which must still be fed, 
Though in the feeding it I suffer throes. 
Fume at your own opinion as you will : 
I speak not now to you, but to my daughter. 
If she still calls it good to mate with you, 
To be a Spanish duchess, kneel at court, 



208 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And hope her beauty is excuse to men 

When women whisper, ' ' A mere Zincala !" 

If she still calls it good to take a lot 

That measures joy for her as she forgets 

Her kindred and her kindred's misery, 

Nor feels the softness of her downy couch 

Marred by remembrance that she once forsook 

The place that she was born to — let her go ! 

If life for her still lies in alien love, 

That forces her to shut her soul from truth 

As men in shameful pleasures shut out day ; 

And death, for her, is to do rarest deeds, 

Which, even failing, leave new faith to men, 

The faith in human hearts — then, let her go ! 

She is my only offspring ; in her veins 

She bears the blood her tribe has trusted in ; 

Her heritage is their obedience, 

And if I died, she might still lead them forth 

To plant the race her lover now reviles 

Where they may make a nation, and may rise 

To grander manhood than his race can show ; 

Then live a goddess, sanctifying oaths, 

Enforcing right, and ruling consciences, 

By law deep-graven in exalting deeds, 

Through the long ages of her people's life. 

If she can leave that lot for silken shame, 

For kisses honeyed by oblivion — 

The bliss of drunkards or the blank of fools — 

Then let her go ! You Spanish Catholics, 

When you are cruel, base, and treacherous, 

For ends not pious, tender gifts to God, 

And for men's wounds offer much oil to churches : 

We have no altars for such healing gifts 

As soothe the heavens for outrage done on earth. 

We have no priesthood and no creed to teach 

That she — the Zincala — who might save her race 

And yet abandons it, may cleanse that blot, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



?°9 



And mend the curse her life has been to men, 
By saving her own soul. Her one base choice 
Is wrong unchangeable, is poison shed 
Where men m;:st drink, shed by her poisoning 

will. 
Now choose, Fe^lma ! 

[But her choice was made. 
Slowly, while yet her father spoke, she moved 
From where oblique with deprecating arms 
She stood between the two who swayed her heart : 
Slowly she moved to choose sublimer pain ; 
Yearning, yet shrinking ; wrought upon by awe, 
Her own brief life seeming a little isle 
Remote through visions of a wider world 
With fates close-crowded ; firm to slay her joy 
That cut her heart with smiles beneath the knife, 
Like a sweet babe foredoomed by prophecy. 
She stood apart, yet near her father : stood 
Hand clutching hand, her limbs all tense with 

will 
That strove 'gainst anguish, eyes that seemed a 

soul 
Yearning in death toward him she loved and left. 
He faced her, pale with passion and a will 
Fierce to resist whatever might seem strong 
And ask him to submit : he saw one end — 
He must be conqueror ; monarch of his lot 
And not its tributary. But she spoke 
Tenderly, pleadingly.] 

Fedalma. 

My lord, farewell ! 
'Twas well we met once more ; now we must part. 
I think we had the chief of all love's joys 
Only in knowing that we loved each other. 



2IO THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Don Silva. 
I thought we loved with love that clings till 

death, 
Clings as brute mothers bleeding to their young, 
Still sheltering, clutching it, though it were dead ; 
Taking the death-wound sooner than divide. 
I thought we loved so. 

Fed alma. 

Silva, it is fate. 
Great Fate has made me heiress of this woe. 
You must forgive Fedalma all her debt : 
She is quite beggared : if she gave herself, 
'Twould be a self corrupt with stifled thoughts 
Of a forsaken better. It is truth 
My father speaks : the Spanish noble's wife 
Were a false Zincala. No ! I will bear 
The heavy trust of my inheritance. 
See, 'twas my people's life that throbbed in me : 
An unknown need stirred darkly in my soul, 
And made me restless even in my bliss. 
Oh, all my bliss was in our love ; but now 
I may not taste it : some deep energy 
Compels me to choose hunger. Dear, farewell ! 
I must go with my people. 

[She stretched forth 
Her tender hands, that oft had lain in his, 
The hands he knew so well, that sight of them 
Seemed like their touch. But he stood still as 

death ; 
Locked motionless by forces opposite : 
His frustrate hopes still battled with despair ; 
His will was prisoner to the double grasp 
Of rage and hesitancy. All the way 
Behind him he had trodden confident, 
Ruling munificently in his thought 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 211 

This Gypsy father. Now the father stood 
Present and silent and unchangeable 
As a celestial portent. Backward lay 
The traversed road, the town's forsaken wall. 
The risk, the daring ; all around him now 
Was obstacle, save where the rising flood 
Of love close pressed by anguish of denial 
Was sweeping him resistless ; save where she 
Gazing stretched forth her tender hands, that hurt 
Like parting kisses. Then at last he spoke.] 

Don Silva. 
No, I can never take those hands in mine 
Then let them go forever ! 

Fedalma. 

It must be. 
We may not make this world a paradise 
By walking it together hand in hand, 
With eyes that meeting feed a double strength. 
We must be only joined by pains divine 
Of spirits blent in mutual memories. 
Silva, our joy is dead. 

Don Silva. . 

But love still Uvea, 
And has a safer guard in wretchedness. 
Fedalma, women know no perfect love : 
Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong ; 
Man clings because the being whom he loves 
Is weak and needs him. I can never turn 
And leave you to your difficult wandering ; 
Know that you tread the desert, bear the storm 
Shed tears, see terrors, faint with weariness, 
Yet live away from you. I should feel nought 
But your imagined pains : in my own steps 
See your feet bleeding, taste your silent tears, 



212 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And feel no presence but your loneliness. 
No, I will never leave you ! 

Zarca. 

My lord Duke, 
I have been patient, given room for speech, 
Bent not to move my daughter by command, 
Save that of her own faithfulness. But now, 
All further words are idle elegies 
Unfitting times of action. You are here 
With the safe-conduct of that trust you showed 
Coming unguarded to the Gypsy's camp. 
I would fain meet all trust with courtesy 
As well as honor ; but my utmost power 
Is to afford you Gypsy guard to-night 
Within the tents that keep the northward lines, 
And for the morrow, escort on your way 
Back to the Moorish bounds. 

Don Silva. 

What if my words 
Were meant for deeds, decisive as a leap 
Into the current ? It is not my wont 
To utter hollow words, and speak resolves 
Like verses bandied in a madrigal. 
I spoke in action first : I faced all risks 
To find Fedalma. Action speaks again 
When I, a Spanish noble, here declare 
That I abide with her, adopt her lot, 
Claiming alone the fulfilment of her vows 
As my betrothed wife. 

Fedalma {wresting herself from him, and stand- 
ing opposite with a look of terror). 
Nay, Silva, nay ! 
You could not live so — spring from your high 
place . . . 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 213 

Don Silva. 

Yes, I have said it. And you, chief, are bound 
By her strict vows, no stronger fealty 
Being left to cancel them. 

Zarca. 

Strong words, my lord ! 
Sounds fatal as the hammer-strokes that shape 
The glowing metal : they must shape your life. 
That you will claim my daughter is to say 
That you will leave your Spanish dignities, 
Your home, your wealth, your people, to become 
Wholly a Zincalo : share our wanderings, 
And be a match meet for my daughter's dower 
By living for her tribe ; take the deep oath 
That binds you to us ; rest within our camp, 
Nevermore hold command of Spanish men, 
And keep my orders. See, my lord, you lock 
A many- win ding chain — a heavy chain. 

Don Silva. 

I have but one resolve : let the rest follow. 
What is my rank ? To-morrow it will be filled 
Ey one who eyes it like a carrion bird, 
Waiting for death. I shall be no more missed 
Than waves are missed that leaping on the rock 
Find there a bed and rest. Life's a vast sea 
That does its mighty errand without fail, 
Panting in unchanged strength though waves are 

changing. 
And I have said it : she shall be my people, 
And where she gives her life I will give mine. 
She shall not live alone, nor die alone. 
I will elect my deeds, and be the liege 
Not of my birth, but of that good alone 
I have discerned and chosen. 



214 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Zarca. 

Our poor faith 
Allows not rightful choice, save of the right 
Our birth has made for us. And you, my lord, 
Can still defer your choice, for some days' space. 
I march perforce to-night ; you, if you will, 
Under a Gypsy guard, can keep the heights 
With silent Time that slowly opes the scroll 
Of change inevitable — take no oath 
Till my accomplished task leave me at large 
To see you keep your purpose or renounce it. 

Don Silva. 

Chief, do I hear amiss, or does your speech 
Ring with a doubleness which I had held 
Most alien to you? You would put me off, 
And cloak evasion with allowance ? No \ 
We will complete our pledges. I will take 
That oath which binds not me alone, but you, 
To join my life forever with Fedalma's. 

Zarca. 
I wrangle not — time presses. But the oath 
Will leave you that same post upon the heights ; 
Pledged to remain there while my absence lasts. 
You are agreed, my lord ? 

Don Silva. 

Agreed to all. 
Zarca. 
Then I will give the summons to our camp. 
We will adopt you as a brother now, 
After our wonted fashion. 

[Exit Zarca, 

(Silva takes Fedalma's hands.) 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 215 

Fedalma. 

O my lord ! 
I think the earth is trembling : nought is firm. 
Some terror chills me with a shadowy grasp. 
Am I about to wake, or do you breathe 
Here in this valley ? Did the outer air 
Vibrate to fatal words, or did they shake 
Only my dreaming soul ? You — join — our tribe ? 

Don Silva. 
Is then your love too faint to raise belief 
Up to that height ? 

Fedalma. 

Silva, had you but said 
That you would die — that were an easy task 
For you who oft have fronted death in war. 
But so to live for me — you, used to rule — 
You could not breathe the air my father breathes : 
His presence is subjection. Go, my lord ! 
Fly, while there yet is time. Wait not to speak. 
I will declare that I refused your love — 
Would keep no vows to you . . . 

Don Silva. 

It is too late. 
You shall not thrust me back to seek a good 
Apart from you. And what good ? Why, to face 
Your absence — all the want that drove me forth— 
To work the will of a more tyrannous friend 
Than any uncowled father. Life at least 
Gives choice of ills ; forces me to defy, 
But shall not force me to a weak defiance. 
The power that threatened you, to master me, 
That scorches like a cave-hid dragon's breath, 
Sure of its victory in spite of hate, 
Is what I last will bend to — most defy. 
Your father has a chieftain's ends, befitting 



216 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

A soldier's eye and arm : were he as strong 
As the Moors' prophet, yet the prophet too 
Had younger captains of illustrious fame 
Among the infidels. Let him command, 
For when your father speaks, I shall hear you. 
Life were no gain if you were lost to me : 
I would straight go and seek the Moorish walls, 
Challenge their bravest, and embrace swift death. 
The Glorious Mother and her pitying Son 
Are not Inquisitors, else their heaven were hell. 
Perhaps they hate their cruel worshippers, 
And let them feed on lies. I'll rather trust 
They love you and have sent me to defend you. 

Fedalma. 
I made my creed so, just to suit my mood 
And smooth all hardship, till my father came 
And taught my soul by ruling it. Since then 
I cannot weave a dreaming happy creed 
Where our love's happiness is not accursed. 
My father shook my soul awake. And you — 
The bonds Fedalma may not break for you, 
I cannot joy that you should break for her. 

Don Silva. 
Oh, Spanish men are not a petty band 
Where one deserter makes a fatal breach. 
Men, even nobles, are more plenteous 
Than steeds and armor ; and my weapons left 
Will find new hands to wield them. Arrogance 
Makes itself champion of mankind, and holds 
God's purpose maimed for one hidalgo lost. 

See where your father comes and brings a crowd 
Of witnesses to hear my oath of love ; 
The low red sun glows on them like a fire. 
This seems a valley in some strange new world 
Where we have found each other, my Fedalma. 



BOOK IV". 

Now twice the day had sunk from off the hills 
While Silva kept his watch there, with the band 
Of stalwart Gypsies. When the sun was high 
He slept ; then, waking, strained impatient eyes 
To catch the promise of some moving form 
That might be Juan — Juan who went and came 
To soothe two hearts, and claimed nought for his 

own : 
Friend more divine than all divinities, 
Quenching his human thirst in others' joy. 
All through the lingering nights and pale chill 

dawns 
Juan had hovered near ; with delicate sense, 
As of some breath from every changing mood, 
Had spoken or kept silence ; touched his lute 
To hint of melody, or poured brief strains 
That seemed to make all sorrows natural, 
Hardly worth weeping for, since life was short, 
And shared by loving souls. Such pity welled 
Within the minstrel's heart of light-tongued Juan 
For this doomed man, who with dream-shrouded 

eyes 
Had stepped into a torrent as a brook, 
Thinking to ford it and return at will, 
And now waked helpless in the eddying flood. 
Hemmed by its raging hurry. Once that thought ( 
How easy wandering is, how hard and strict 
The homeward way, had slipped from reverie 
Into low-murmured song ; — (brief Spanish song 
'Scaped him as sighs escape from other men). 



2i8 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Push off the boat, 
Quit, quit the shore, 

The stars will guide us back : — 
O gathering clotid, 
O wide, wide sea, 

O waves that keep no track I 

On through the pines ! 
The pillared woods, 

Where silence breathes sweet breath : — 
O labyrinth, 

O sunless gloom, 

The other side of death ! 

Such plaintive song had seemed to please the 

Duke- 
Had seemed to melt all voices of reproach 
To sympathetic sadness ; but his moods 
Had grown more fitful with the growing hours, 
And this soft murmur had the iterant voice 
Of heartless Echo, whom no pain can move 
To say aught else than w r e have said to her. 
He spoke, impatient : " Juan, cease thy song. 
Our whimpering poesy and small-paced tunes 
Have no more utterance than the cricket's chirp 
For souls that carry heaven and hell within." 
Then Juan, lightly : " True, my lord, I chirp 
For lack of soul ; some hungry poets chirp 
For lack of bread. 'Twere wiser to sit down 
And count the star-seed, till I fell asleep 
With the cheap wine of pure stupidity." 
And Silva, checked by courtesy : " Nay, Juan, 
Were speech once good, the song were best o£ 

speech. 
I meant, all life is but poor mockery : 
Action, place, power, the visible wide world 
Are tattered masquerading of this self, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



JI9 



This pulse of conscious mystery : all change, 

Whether to high or low, is change of rags. 

But for her love, I would not take a good 

Save to burn out in battle, in a flame 

Of madness that would feel no mangled limbs, 

And die not knowing death, but passing straight 

— Well, well, to other flames — in purgatory." 

Keen Juan's ear caught the self-discontent 

That vibrated beneath the changing tones 

Of life-contemning scorn. Gently he said : 

44 But with her love, my lord, the world deserves 

A higher rate ; were it J)ut masquerade, 

The rags were surely worth the wearing ? " " Yes~ 

No misery shall force me to repent 

That I have loved her." 

So with wilful talk, 
Fencing the wounded soul from beating winds 
Of truth that came unasked, companionship 
Made the hours lighter. And the Gypsy guard. 
Trusting familiar Juan, were content, 
At friendly hint from him, to still their songs 
And busy jargon round the nightly fires. 
Such sounds, the quick-conceiving poet knew 
Would strike on Silva's agitated soul 
Like mocking repetition of the oath 
That bound him in strange clanship with the 

tribe 
Of human panthers, flame-eyed, lithe-limbed, 

fierce, 
Unrecking of time-woven subtleties 
And high tribunals of a phantom-world. 

But the third day, though Silva southward gazed 
Till all the shadows slanted toward him, gazed 
Till all the shadows died, no Juan came. 
Now in his stead came loneliness, and Thought 
Inexorable, fastening with firm chain 



220 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

What is to what hath been. Now awful Night, 
The prime ancestral mystery, came down 
Past all the generations of the stars, 
And visited his soul with touch more close 
Than when he kept that younger, briefer watch 
Under the church's roof beside his arms, 
And won his knighthood. 

Well, this solitude, 
This company with the enduring universe, 
Whose mighty silence carrying all the past 
Absorbs our history as with a breath, 
Should give him more assurance, make him 

strong 
In all contempt of that poor circumstance 
Called human life — customs and bonds and laws 
Wherewith men make a better or a worse, 
Like children playing on a barren mound 
Feigning a thing to strive for or avoid. 
Thus Silva argued with his many-voiced self, 
Whose thwarted needs, like angry multitudes, 
Lured from the home that nurtured them to 

strength, 
Made loud insurgence. Thus he called on 

Thought, 
On dexterous Thought, with its swift alchemy 
To change all forms, dissolve all prejudice 
Of man's long heritage, and yield him up 
A crude fused world to fashion as he would. 
Thought played him double ; seemed to wear the 

yoke 
Of sovereign passion in the noon-day height 
Of passion's prevalence , but served anon 
As tribune to the larger soul which brought 
Loud-mingled cries from every human need 
That ages had instructed into life. 
He could not grasp Night's black blank mystery 
And wear it for a spiritual garb 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 221 

Creed-proof : he shuddered at its passionless 

touch. 
On solitary souls, the universe 
Looks down inhospitable ; the human heart 
Finds nowhere shelter but in human kind. 
He yearned toward images that had breath in 

them, 
That sprang warm palpitant with memories 
From streets and altars, from ancestral homes 
Banners and trophies and the cherishing rays 
Of shame and honor in the eyes of man. 
These made the speech articulate of his soul, 
That could not move to utterance of scorn 
Save in words bred by fellowship ; could not feel 
Resolve of hardest constancy to love 
The firmer for the sorrows of the loved, 
Save by concurrent energies high-wrought 
To sensibilities transcending sense 
Through close community, and long-shared pains 
Of far-off generations. All in vain 
He sought the outlaw's strength, and made a 

right 
Contemning that hereditary right 
Which held dim habitations in his frame, 
Mysterious haunts of echoes old and far, 
The voice divine of human loyalty. 
At home, among his people, he had played 
In sceptic ease with saints and litanies, 
And thunders of the Church that deadened fell 
Through screens of priests plethoric. Awe, un« 

scathed 
By deeper trespass, slept without a dream. 
But for such trespass as made outcasts, still 
The ancient Furies lived with faces new 
And lurked with lighter slumber than of old 
O'er Catholic Spain, the land of sacred oatUs 
That might be broken. 



22 2 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Now the former life 
Of close-linked fellowship, the life that made 
His full-formed self, as the impregnate sap 
Of years successive frames the full-branched 

tree — 
Was present in one whole ; and that great trust 
His deed had broken turned reproach on him 
From faces of all witnesses who heard 
His uttered pledges ; saw him hold high place 
Centring reliance ; use rich privilege 
That bound him like a victim-nourished god 
By tacit covenant to shield and bless ; 
Assume the Cross and take his knightly oath 
Mature, deliberate : faces human all, 
And some divine as well as human : His 
Who hung supreme, the suffering Man divine 
Above the altar ; Hers, the Mother pure 
Whose glance informed his masculine tender- 
ness 
With deepest reverence ; the Archangel armed, 
Trampling man's enemy : all heroic forms 
That fill the world of faith with voices, hearts, 
And high companionship, to Silva now 
Made but one inward and insistent world 
With faces of his peers, with court and hall 
And deference, and reverent vassalage, 
And filial pieties — one current strong, 
The warmly mingled life-blood of his mind r 
Sustaining him even when he idly played 
With rules, beliefs, charges, and ceremonies 
As arbitrary fooling. Such revenge 
Is wrought by the long travail of mankind 
On him who scorns it, and would shape his life 
Without obedience. 

But his warrior's pride 
Would take no wounds save on the breast. He 
faced 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 2 2$ 

The fatal crowd : '* I never shall repent ! 
If I have sinned, my sin was made for me 
By men's perverseness. There's no blameless life 
Save for the passionless, no sanctities 
But have the self-same roof and props with crime, 
Or have their roots close interlaced with wrong. 
If I had loved her less, been more a craven, 
I had kept my place and won the easy praise 
Of a true Spanish noble. But I loved, 
And, loving, dared — not Death the warrior 
But Infamy that binds and strips, and holds 
The brand and lash. I have dared all for her. 
She was my good — what other men call heaven. 
And for the sake of it bear penances ; 
Nay, some of old were baited, tortured, flayed 
To win their heaven. Heaven was their good- 
She, mine. And I have braved for her all fires 
Certain or threatened ; for I go away 
Beyond the reach of expiation — far away 
From sacramental blessing. Does God bless 
No outlaw ? Shut his absolution fast 
In human breath ? Is there no God for me 
Save him whose cross I have forsaken ? — Well, 
I am forever exiled — but with her ! 
She is dragged out into the wilderness ; 
J, with my love, will be her providence. 
I have a right to choose my good or ill, 
A right to damn myself ! The ill is mine. 
I never will repent !" . . . 
Thus Silva, inwardly debating, all his ear 
Turned into audience of a twofold mind ; 
For even in tumult full-fraught consciousness 
Had plenteous being for a self aloof 
That gazed and listened, like a soul in dreams 
Weaving the wondrous tale it marvels at. 
But oft the conflict slackened, oft strong Love 
With tidal energy returning laid 



224 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

All other restlessness : Fedalma came, 
And with her visionary presence brought 
What seemed a waking in the warm spring mora 
He still was pacing on the stony earth 
Under the deepening night ; the fresh-lit fires 
Were flickering on dark forms and eyes that met 
His forward and his backward tread ; but she, 
She was within him, making his whole self 
Mere correspondence with her image : sense, 
In all its deep recesses where it keeps 
The mystic stores of ecstasy, was turned 
To memory that killed the hour, like wine. 
Then Silva said, " She, by herself, is life. 
What was my joy before I loved her — what 
Shall heaven lure us with, love being lost?" — 
For he was young. 

But now around the fires 
The Gypsy band felt freer ; Juan's song 
Was no more there, nor Juan's friendly ways 
For links of amity 'twixt their wild mood 
And this strange brother, this pale Spanish duke, 
Who with their Gypsy badge upon his breast 
Took readier place within their alien hearts 
As a marked captive, who would fain escape. 
And Nadar, who commanded them, had known 
The prison in Bedmar. So now, in talk 
Foreign to Spanish ears, they said their minds, 
Discussed their chief's intent, the lot marked out 
For this new brother. Would he wed their 

queen ? 
And some denied, saying their queen would wed 
Only a Gypsy duke — one who would join 
Their bands in Telemsan. But others thought 
Young Hassan was to wed her ; said their chief 
Would never trust this noble of Castile, 
Who in his very swearing was forsworn. 
And then one fell to chanting, in wild notes 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 225 

Recurrent like the moan of outshut winds. 

The adjuration they were wont to use 

To any Spaniard who would join their tribe : 

Words of plain Spanish, lately stirred anew 

And ready at new impulse. Soon the rest, 

Drawn to the stream of sound, made unison 

Higher and lower, till the tidal sweep 

Seemed to assail the Duke and close him round 

With force daemonic. All debate till now 

Had wrestled with the urgence of that oath 

Already broken ; now the newer oath 

Thrust its loud presence on him. He stood still, 

Close baited by loud-barking thoughts — fierce 

hounds 
Of that Supreme, the irreversible Past. 

The Zincali sing. 

Brother, hear and take the curse. 
Curse of souVs and body's throes ', 
If you hate not all our foes, 
Cling not fast to all our woes y 
Turn false Zincalo I 

May you be accurst 
By hunger and by thirst 
By spike'd pangs , 
Starvation } s fangs 
Clutching you alone 
When none but peering vultures hear your moan*. 
Curst by burning hands, 

Curst by aching brow, 
When on sea-wide sands 

Fever lays you low ; 
By the maddened brain 
When the running water glistens, 
And the deaf ear listens, listens, 



226 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Poisoned fire within the vein* 
On the tongue and on the lip 

Not a sip 
From the earth or skies ; 
Hot the desert lies 
Pressed into your anguish, 
Narrowing earth and narrowing sky 
Into lonely misery. 

Lonely may you languish 
Through the day and through the night* 
Hate the darkness, hate the light, 
Pray and find no ear, 
Feel no brother near, 
Till on death you cry, 
Death who passes by, 
And anew you givan, 
Scaring the vultures all to leave you living lone 
Curst by souls and body's throes 
If you love the dark mens foes, 
Cling not fast to all the dark men's woes, 
Turn false Zincalo ! 
Swear to hate the cruel cross, 

The silver cross ! 
Glittering, laughing at the blood 
Shed below it in a flood 
When it glitters over Moorish po?'ches ; 

Laughing at the scent of flesh 
When it glitters where the fagot scorches \ 
Burning life's mysterious mesh : 
Blood of wandering Israel, 
Blood of wandering Ismael, 
Blood, the drink of Christian scorn, 
Blood of wanderers, sons of morn 
Where the life of men began : 
Swear to hate the cross i — 
Sign of all the wanderers' foes, 
Sign of all the wanderers' woes — 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



227 



Else its curse light on you I 
Else the curse upon you light 
Of its sharp red-sworded might. 
May it lie a blood-red blight 
On all things within your sight : 
On the white haze of the ?norn, 
On the meadows and the com, 
On the sun and on the moon, 
On the clearness of the noon, 
On the darkness of the night. 
May it fill your aching sight — 
Red-cross sword and sword blood-red— ~ 
Till it press upon your head, 
Till it lie within your brain, 
Piercing sharp, a cross of pain, 
Till it lie upon your heart, 

Burning hot, a cross of fire 
Till from sense in every part 
pains have clustered like a stinging swarm 

In the cross's form, 
And you see nought but the cross of blood, 
And you feel nought but the cross of fire ; 
Curst by all the cross's throes 
If you hate not all our foes , 
Cling not fast to all our woes, 
Turn false Zlncalo ! 

A fierce delight was in the Gypsies' chant : 
They thought no more of Silva, only felt 
Like those broad-chested rovers of the night 
Who pour exuberant strength upon the air. 
To him it seemed as if the hellish rhythm, 
Revolving in long curves that slackened now, 
Now hurried, sweeping round again to slackness. 
Would cease no more. What use to raise his 

voice, 
Or grasp his weapon ? He was powerless now, 



2 2b THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

With these new comrades of his future — he 
Who had been wont to have his wishes feared 
And guessed at as a hidden law for men. 
Even the passive silence of the night 
That left these howlers mastery, even the moon v 
Rising and staring with a helpless face, 
Angered him. He was ready now to fly 
At some loud throat, and give the signal so 
For butchery of himself. 

But suddenly 
The sounds that travelled toward no foreseen close 
Were torn right off and fringed into the night ; 
Sharp Gypsy ears had caught the onward strain 
Of kindred voices joining in the chant. 
All started to their feet and mustered close, 
Auguring long-waited summons. It was come : 
The summons to set forth and join their chief. 
Fedalma had been called, and she was gone 
Under safe escort, Juan following her : 
The camp — the women, children, and old men- 
Were moving slowly southward on the way 
To Almeria. Silva learned no more. 
He marched perforce ; what other goal was his 
Than where Fedalma was ? And so he marched 
Through the dim passes and o'er rising hills, 
Not. knowing whither, till the morning came. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 229 

The Moorish hall in the castle at Bedmdr. The 
morning twilight dimly shows stains of blood 
on the while marble floor ; yet there has been 
a careful 1 estoration of order among the sparse 
objects of furniture. Stretched on mats lie 
three corpses, the faces bare, the bodies covered 
with mantles. A little way off, with rolled 
matting for a pillow, lies Zarca, sleeping. 
His chest and arms are bare ; his weapons, 
turban, mail-shirt, and other upper garments 
lie on the floor beside him. In the outer gal- 
lery Zincali are pacing, at intervals , past the 
arched openings. 

Zarca {half rising and resting his elbow on the 
pillow while he looks round). 

The morning ! I have slept for full three hours ; 
Slept without dreams, save my daughter's face. 
Its sadness waked me. Soon she will be here, 
Soon must outlive the worst of all the pains 
Bred by false nurture in an alien home — 
As if a lion in fangless infancy 
Learned love of creatures that with fatal growth 
It scents as natural prey, and grasps and tears, 
Yet with heart-hunger yearns for, missing them. 
She is a lioness. And they — the race 
That robbed me of her — reared her to this pain. 
He will be crushed and torn. There was no help. 
But she, my child, will bear it. For strong 

souls 
Live like fire-hearted suns to spend their strength 
In farthest striving action ; breathe more free 
In mighty anguish than in trivial ease. 
Her sad face waked me. I shall meet it soon 
Waking . . . 

{He rises and stands looking at the corpses. ) 



23° 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



As now I look on these pale dead, 
These blossoming branches crushed beneath the 

fall 
Of that broad trunk to which I laid my axe 
With fullest foresight. So will I ever face 
In thought beforehand to its utmost reach 
The consequences of my conscious deeds ; 
So face them after, bring them to my bed, 
And never drug my soul to sleep with lies. 
If they are cruel, they shall be arraigned 
By that true name ; they shall be justified 
By my high purpose, by the clear-seen good 
That grew into my vision as I grew, 
And makes my nature's function, the full pulse 
Of inbred kingship. Catholics, 
Arabs, and Hebrews, have their god apiece 
To light and conquer for them, or be bruised, 
Like Allah now, yet keep avenging stores 
Of patient wrath. The Zincali have no god 
Who speaks to them and calls them his, unless 
I, Zarca, carry living in my frame 
The power divine that chooses them and saves. 
44 Life and more life unto the chosen, death 
To all things living that would stifle them ! " 
So speaks each god that makes a nation strong ; 
Burns trees and brutes and slays all hindering 

men. 
The Spaniards boast their god the strongest now ; 
They win most towns by treachery, make most 

slaves, 
Burn the most vines and men, and rob the most. 
I fight against that strength, and in my turn 
Slay these brave young who duteously strove. 
Cruel ? ay, it is cruel. But, how else ? 
To save, we kill ; each blow we strike at guilt 
Hurts innocence with its shock. Men might 

well seek 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 231 

For purifying rites ; even pious deeds 

Need washing. But my cleansing waters flow 

Solely from my intent. 

{He turns away from the bodies to where 
his garments lie, but does not lift them.) 

And she must suffer ! 
But she has seen the unchangeable and bowed 
Her head beneath the yoke. And she will walk 
No more in chilling twilight, for to-day 
Rises our sun. The difficult night is past ; 
We keep the bridge no more, but cross it ; march 
Forth to a land where all our wars shall be 
With greedy obstinate plants that will not yield 
Fruit for their nurture. All our race shall come 
From north, west, east, a kindred multitude, 
And make large fellowship, and raise inspired 
The shout divine, the unison of resolve. 
So I, so she, will see our race redeemed. 
And their keen love of family and tribe 
Shall no more thrive on cunning, hide and lurk 
In petty arts of abject hunted life, 
But grow heroic in the sanctioning light, 
And feed with ardent blood a nation's heart. 
That is my work : and it is well begun. 
On to achievement ! 

{He takes up the mail-shirt, and looks at 
then throws it down again,) 

No, I'll none of you ! 
To-day there'll be no fighting. A few hours, 
And I shall doff these garments of the Moor : 
Till then I will walk lightly and breathe high. 

SephArdO {appearing at the archway leading inU 
the outer gallery). 

You bade me wake you . . . 



232 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Zarca. 

Welcome, Doctor ; see* 
With that small task I did but beckon you 
To graver work. You know these corpses ? 

Sephardo. 

Yes 
I would they were not corpses. Storms will lay 
The fairest trees and leave the withered stumps. 
This Alvar and the Duke were of one age, 
And very loving friends. I minded not 
The sight of Don Diego's corpse, for death 
Gave him some gentleness, and had he lived 
I had still hated him. But this young Alvar 
Was doubly noble, as a gem that holds 
Rare virtues in its lustre ; and his death 
Will pierce Don Silva with a poisoned dart. 
This fair and curly youth was Arias, 
A son of the Pachecos ; this dark face . . . 

Zarca. 

Enough ! you know their names. I had divined 
That they were near the Duke, most like had 

served 
My daughter, were her friends ; so rescued them 
From being flung upon the heap of slain. 
Beseech you, Doctor, if you owe me aught 
As having served your people, take the pains 
To see these bodies buried decently. 
And let their names be writ above their graves, 
As those of brave young Spaniards who died well 
I needs must bear this womanhood in my heart — 
Bearing my daughter there. For once she 

prayed — 
'Twas at our parting — " When you see fair hair 
Be pitiful." And I am forced to look 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 233 

On fair heads living and be pitiless. 
Your service, Doctor, will be done to her. 

Sephardo. 
A service doubly dear. For these young dead, 
And one less happy Spaniard who still lives, 
Are offerings which I wrenched from out my 

heart, 
Constrained by cries of Israel : while my hands 
Rendered the victims at command, my eyes 
Closed themselves vainly, as. if vision lay 
Through those poor loopholes only. I will go 
And see the graves dug by some cypresses. 

Zarca. 
Meanwhile the bodies shall rest here. FarewelL 
(Exit Sephardo.) 

Nay, 'tis no mockery. She keeps me so 
From hardening with the hardness of my acts. 
This Spaniard shrouded in her love — I would 
He lay here too that I might pity him. 



234 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



Morning. — The Placa Santiago in Bedmdr. A 
crowa of townsmen forming an outer circle : 
within, Zincali and Moorish soldiers drazvn up 
round the central space. On the higher ground 
in front of the church a stake with fagots heap- 
ed, and at a little distance a gibbet. Moorish 
music. Zarca enters, zvearing his gold neck- 
lace with the Gypsy badge of the flat? ring torch 
over the dress of a Moorish Captain, accom- 
panied by a small band of armed Zincali, who 
fall aside and range themselves tvith the other 
soldiers zvhile he takes his stand in front of 
the stake and gibbet. The music ceases, and 
there is expectant silence. 

Zarca. 
Men of Bedmar, well-wishers, and allies. 
Whether of Moorish or of Hebrew blood. 
Who, being- galled by the hard Spaniard's yoke, 
Have welcomed our quick conquest as release, 
I, Zarca, chief of Spanish Gypsies, hold 
By delegation of the Moorish King 
Supreme command within this town and fort. 
Nor will I, with false show of modesty, 
Profess myself unworthy of this post, 
For so I should but tax the giver's choice. 
And, as ye know, while I was prisoner here, 
Forging the bullets meant for Moorish hearts, 
But likely now to reach another mark, 
I learned the secrets of the town's defence, 
Caught the loud whispers of your discontent, 
And so could serve the purpose of the Moor 
As the edge's keenness serves the weapon's weight. 
My Zincali, lynx-eyed and lithe of limb, 
Tracked out the high Sierra's hidden path, 
Guided the hard ascent, and were the first 
To scale the wails and brave the showering stones. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



2 35 



In brief, I reached this rank through service done 
By thought of mine and valor of my tribe, 
Yet hold it but in trust, with readiness 
To lay it down ; for we — the Zincali — 
Will never pitch our tents again on land 
The Spaniard grudges us : we seek a home 
Where we may spread and ripen like the corn 
By blessing of the sun and spacious earth. 
Ye wish us well, I think, and are our friends ? 

Crowd. 
Long life to Zarca and his Zincali ! 

Zarca. 
Now, for the cause of our assembling here. 
'Twas my command that rescued from your hands 
That Spanish Prior and Inquisitor 
Whom in fierce retribution you had bound 
And meant to burn, tied to a planted cross. 
I rescued him with promise that his death 
Should be more signal in its justice — made 
Public in fullest sense, and orderly. 
Here, then, you see the stake — slow death by fire ; 
And there a gibbet — swift death by the cord. 
Now hear me, Moors and Hebrews of Bedmar, 
Our kindred by the warmth of Eastern blood ! 
Punishing cruel wrong by cruelty 
We copy Christian crime. Vengeance is just : 
Justly we rid the earth of human fiends 
Who carry hell for pattern in their souls. 
But in high vengeance there is noble scorn : 
It tortures not the torturer, nor gives 
Iniquitous payment for iniquity. 
The great avenging angel does not crawl 
To kill the serpent with a mimic fang ; 
^le stands erect, with sword of keenest edge 
\hat slays like lightning. So too we will slay 



236 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

The cruel man ; slay him because he works 
Woe to mankind. And I have given command 
To pile these fagots, not to burn quick flesh, 
But ror a sign of that dire wrong to men 
Which arms our wrath with justice. While, to 

show 
This Christian worshipper that we obey 
A better law than his, he shall be led 
Straight to the gibbet and to swiftest death. 
For I, the chieftain of the Gypsies, will, 
My people shed no blood but what is shed 
In heat of battle or in judgment strict 
With calm deliberation on the right. 
Such is my will, and if it please you — well. 

Crowd. 
It pleases us. Long life to Zarca ! 

Zarca. 

Hark! 

The beL is striking, and they bring even own 
The prisoner from the fort. What, Nadar ? 

Nadar {has appeared, cutting the crowd, and ad- 
vancing toward ZARCA till he is near*enough to 
speak in an undertone). 

Chief, 
I have obeyed your word, have followed it 
As water does the furrow in the rock. 

Zarca. 
Your band is here ? 

Nadar. 
Yes, and the Spaniard too. 

Zarca. 
'Twas so I ordered. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 237 

Nadar. 

Ay, but this sleek hound, 
Who slipped his collar off to join the wolves, 
Has still a heart for none but kennelled brutes. 
He rages at the taking of the town, 
Says all his friends are butchered ; and one corpse 
He stumbled on — well, I would sooner be 
A murdered Gypsy's dog, and howl for him, 
Than be this Spaniard. Rage has made him 

whiter. 
One townsman taunted him with his escape, 
And thanked him for so favoring us. . . . 

Zarca. 

Enough. 
You gave him my command that he should wait 
Within the castle, till I saw him ? 

Nadar. 

Yes. 
But he defied me, broke away, ran loose 
I know not whither ; he may soon be here. 
I came to warn you, lest he work us harm. 

Zarca. 
Fear not, I know the road I travel by : 
Its turns are no surprises. He who rules 
Must humor full as much as he commands ; 
Must let men vow impossibilities ; 
Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish 
And serve the ends of wisdom. Ah, he comes \ 

[Sweeping like some pale herald from the dead, 
Whose shadow-nurtured eyes, dazed by full light* 
See nought without, but give reverted sense 
To the soul's imagery, Silva came, 
The wondering people parting wide to get 



238 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Continuous sight of him as he passed on — 
This high hidalgo, who through blooming years 
Had shone on men with planetary calm, 
Believed-in with all sacred images 
And saints that must be taken as they were, 
Though rendering meagre service for men's 

praise : 
Baueheaded now, carrying an unsheathed sword, 
And on his breast, where late he bore the cross, 
Wearing the Gypsy badge ; his form aslant, 
Driven, it seemed, by some invisible chase, 
Right to the front of Zarca. There he paused.] 

Don Silva. 
Chief, you are treacherous, cruel, devilish ! — 
Relentless as a curse that once let loose 
From lips of wrath, lives bodiless to destroy, 
And darkly traps a man in nets of guilt 
Which could not weave themselves in open day 
Before his eyes. Oh, it was bitter wrong 
To hold this knowledge locked within your mind, 
To stand with waking eyes in broadest light, 
And see me, dreaming, shed my kindred's blood. 
'Tis horrible that men with hearts and hands 
Should smile in silence like the firmament 
And see a fellow-mortal draw a lot 
On which themselves have written agony ! 
Such injury has no redress, no healing 
Save what may lie in stemming further ill. 
Poor balm for maiming ! Yet I come to claim it. 

Zarca. 
First prove your wrongs, and I will hear youf 

claim. 
Mind, you are not commander of Bedmar, 
Nor duke, nor knight, nor anything for me, 
Save a sworn Gypsy, subject with my tribe. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 239 

Over whose deeds my will is absolute. 
You chose that lot, and would have railed at me 
Had I refused it you : I warned you first 
What oaths you had to take . . . 

Don Silva. 

You never warned me 
That you had linked yourself with Moorish men 
To take this town and fortress of Bedmar — 
Slay my near kinsman, him who held my place, 
Our house's heir and guardian — slay my friend, 
My chosen brother — desecrate the church 
Where once my mother held me in her arms, 
Making the holy chrism holier 
With tears of joy that fell upon my brow ! 
You never warned . . . 

Zarca. 

I warned you of your oath. 
You shrank not, were resolved, were sure your 

place 
Would never miss you, and you had your will. 
I am no priest, and keep no consciences : 
I keep my own place and my own command. 

Don Silva. 

I said my place would never miss me — yes ! 
A thousand Spaniards died on that same day 
And were not missed ; their garments clothed the 

backs 
That eke were bare. . . . 

Zarca. 

But you were just the one 
Above the thousand, had you known the die 
That fate was throwing then. 



240 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Don Silva. 

You knew it — you ! 
With fiendish knowledge, smiling at the end. 
You knew what snares had made my flying steps 
Murderous ; you let me lock my soul with oaths 
Which your acts made a hellish sacrament. 
I say, you knew this as a fiend would know it, 
And let me damn myself. 

Zarca. 

The deed was done 
Before you took your oath, or reached our camp,—' 
Done when you slipped in secret from the post 
'Twas yours to keep, and not to meditate 
If others might not fill it. For your oath, 
What man is he who brandishes a sword 
In darkness, kills his friends, and rages then 
Against the night that kept him ignorant ? 
Should I, for one unstable Spaniard, quit 
My steadfast ends as father and as chief ; 
Renounce my daughter and my people's hope, 
Lest a deserter should be made ashamed ? 

Don Silva. 
Your daughter — O great God ! I vent but mad- 
ness. 
The past will never change. I come to stem 
Harm that may yet be hindered. Chief — this 

stake — 
Tell me who is to die ! Are you not bound 
Yourself to him you took in fellowship ? 
The town is yours ; let me but save the blood 
That still is warm in men who were my . . . 

Zarca. 

Peace ? 
They bring the prisoner. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 241 

[Zarca waved his arm 
With head averse, in peremptory sign 
That 'twixt them now there should be space and 

silence. 
Most eyes had turned to where the prisoner 
Advanced among his guards ; and Silva too 
Turned eagerly, all other striving quelled 
By striving with the dread lest he should see 
His thought outside him. And he saw it there. 
The prisoner was Father Isidor : 
The man whom once he fiercely had accused 
As author of his misdeeds — whose designs 
Had forced him into fatal secrecy. 
The imperious and inexorable Will 
Was yoked, and he who had been pitiless 
To Silva's love, was led to pitiless death. 
O hateful victory of blind wishes— prayers 
Which hell had overheard and swift fulfilled ! 
The triumph was a torture, turning all 
The strength of passion into strength of pain. 
Remorse was born within him, that dire birth 
Which robs all else of nurture — cancerous, 
Forcing each pulse to feed its anguish, turning 
All sweetest residues of healthy life 
To fibrous clutches of slow misery. 
Silva had but rebelled — he was not free ; 
And all the subtle cords that bound his soul 
Were tightened by the strain of one rash leap 
Made in defiance. He accused no more, 
But dumbly shrank before accusing throngs 
Of thoughts, the impetuous recurrent rush 
Of all his past-created, unchanged self. 
The Father came bareheaded, f rocked, a rope 
Around his neck, — but clad with majesty, 
The strength of resolute undivided souls 
Who, owning law, obey it. In his hand 
He bore a crucifix, and praying, gazed 



242 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Solely on that white image. But his guards 
Parted in front, and paused as they approached 
The centre where the stake was. Isidor 
Lifted his eyes to look around him — calm, 
Prepared to speak last words of willingness 
To meet his death — last words of faith unchanged. 
That, working for Christ's kingdom, he had 

wrought 
Righteously. But his glance met Silva's eyes 
And drew him. Even images of stone 
Look living with reproach on him who maims, 
Profanes, defiles them. Silva penitent 
Moved forward, would have knelt before the man 
Who still was one with all the sacred things 
That came back on him in their sacredness, 
Kindred, and oaths, and awe, and mystery. 
But at the sight, the Father thrust the cross 
With deprecating act before him, and his face 
Pale-quivering, flashed out horror like white light 
Flashed from the angel's sword that dooming 

drave 
The sinner to the wilderness. He spoke.] 

Father Isidor. 
Back from me, traitorous and accursed man ! 
Defile not me, who grasp the holiest, 
With touch or breath ! Thou foulest murderer ! 
Fouler than Cain who struck his brother down 
In jealous rage, thou for thy base delight 
Hast oped the gate for wolves to come and tear 
Uncounted brethren, weak and strong alike, 
The helpless priest, the warrior all unarmed 
Against a faithless leader : on thy head 
Will rest the sacrilege, on thy soul the blood. 
These blind barbarians, misbelievers, Moors, 
Are but as Pilate and his soldiery ; 
Thou, Judas, weighted with that heaviest crime 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



243 



Which deepens hell ! I warned you of this end. 
A traitorous leader, false to God and man, 
A knight apostate, you shall soon behold 
Above your people's blood the light of flames 
Kindled by you to burn me — burn the flesh 
Twin with your father's. O most wretched man ! 
Whose memory shall be of broken oaths — 
Broken for lust — I turn away mine eyes 
Forever from you. See, the stake is ready 
And I am ready too. 

Don Silva. 

It shall not be ! 

{Raising his sword, he rushes in front of 
the guards who are advancing, and 
impedes them.} 

If you are human, Chief, hear my demand ! 
Stretch not my soul upon the endless rack 
Of this man's torture ! 

Zarca. 

Stand aside, my lord ! 
Put up your sword. You vowed obedience 
To me, your chief. It was your latest vow. 

Don Silva. 
No ! hew me from the spot, or fasten me 
Amid the fagots too, if he must burn. 

Zarca. 
What should befall that persecuting monk 
Was fixed before you came : no cruelty, 
No nicely measured torture, weight for weight 
Of injury, no luscious-toothed revenge 
That justifies the injurer by its joy : 
I seek but rescue and security 



244 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

For harmless men, and such security 
Means death to vipers and inquisitors. 
These fagots shall but innocently blaze 
In sign of gladness, when this man is dead, 
That one more torturer has left the earth. 
'Tis not for infidels to burn live men 
And ape the rules of Christian piety. 
This hard oppressor shall not die by fire : 
He mounts the gibbet, dies a speedy death, 
That, like a transfixed dragon, he may cease 
To vex mankind. Quick, guards, and clear th« 
path ! 

[As well-trained hounds that hold their fleetness 

tense 
In watchful, loving fixity of dark eyes, 
And move with movement of their master's will, 
The Gypsies with a wavelike swiftness met 
Around the Father, and in wheeling course 
Passed beyond Silva to the gibbet's foot, 
Behind their chieftain. Sudden left alone 
With weapon bare, the multitude aloof, 
Silva was mazed in doubtful consciousness, 
As one who slumbering in the day awakes 
From striving into freedom, and yet feels 
His sense half captive to intangible things ; 
Then with a flush of new decision sheathed 
His futile naked weapon, and strode quick 
To Zarca, speaking with a voice new-toned, 
The struggling soul's hoarse, suffocated cry 
Beneath the grappling anguish of despair.] 

Don Silva. 
You, Zincalo, devil, blackest infidel ! 
You cannot hate that man as you hate me I 
Finish your torture — take me — lift me up 
And let the crowd spit at me — every Moor 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 245 

Shoot reeds at me, and kill me with slow death 

Beneath the mid-day fervor of the sun — 

Or crucify me with a thieving hound — 

Slake your hate so, and I will thank it : spare me 

Only this man ! 

Zarca. 

Madman, I hate you not. 
But if I did, my hate were poorly served 
By my device, if I should strive to mix 
A bitterer misery for you than to taste 
With leisure of a soul in unharmed limbs 
The flavor of your folly. For my course, 
It has a goal, and takes no truant path 
Because of you. I am your chief : to me 
You're nought more than a Zincalo in revolt. 

Don Silva. 

No, I'm no Zincalo ! I here disown 
The name I took in madness. Here I tear 
This badge away. I am a Catholic knight, 
A Spaniard who will die a Spaniard's death ! 

[Hark ! while he casts the badge upon the ground 

And tramples on it, Silva hears a shout : 

Was it a shout that threatened him ? He looked 

From out the dizzying flames of his own rage 

In hope of adversaries — and he saw above 

The form of Father Isidor upswung 

Convulsed with martyr throes ; and knew the 

shout 
For wonted exultation of the crowd 
When malefactors die — or saints, or heroes. 
And now to him that white-frocked murdered 

form 
Which hanging judged him as its murderer. 



246 THE SPANISH GYPSY, 

Turned to a symbol of his guilt, and stirred 
Tremors till then unwaked. With sudden snatch 
At something hidden in his breast, he strode 
Right upon Zarca : at the instant, down 
Fell the great Chief, and Silva, staggering back, 
Heard not the Gypsies' shriek, felt not the fangs 
Of their fierce grasp — heard, .felt but Zarca's 

words 
Which seemed his soul outleaping in a cry 
And urging men to run like rival waves 
Whose rivalry is but obedience.] 

Zarca (as he falls). 
My daughter ! call her ! Call my daughter ! 

NADAR (supporting Zarca and crying to the 
Gypsies who have clutched Silva). 

Stay! 
Tear not the Spaniard, tie him to the stake : 
Hear what the Chief shall bid us — there is time ! 

[Swiftly they tied him, pleasing vengeance so 
With promise that would leave them free to 

watch 
Their stricken good, their Chief stretched help- 
lessly 
Pillowed upon the strength of loving limbs. 
He heaved low groans, but would not spend his 

breath 
In useless words : he waited till she came, 
Keeping his life within the citadel 
Of one great hope. And now around him closed 
(But in wide circle, checked by loving fear) 
His people all, holding their wails suppressed 
Lest Death believed-in should be over-bold : 
All life hung on their Chief — he would not die ; 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 247 

His image gone, there were no wholeness left 
To make a world of for the Zincali's thought. 
Eager they stood, but hushed ; the outer crowd 
Spoke only in low murmurs, and some climbed 
And clung with legs and arms on perilous coigns, 
Striving to see where that colossal life 
Lay panting — lay a Titan struggling still 
To hold and give the precious hidden fire 
Before the stronger grappled him. Above 
The young bright morning cast athwart white 

walls 
Her shadows blue, and with their clear-cut line, 
Mildly relentless as the dial-hand's, 
Measured the shrinking future of an hour 
"Which held a shrinking hope. And all the while 
The silent beat of time in each man's soul 
Made aching pulses. 

But the cry, ■ * She comes !" 
Parted the crowd like waters : and she came. 
Swiftly as once before, inspired with joy, 
She flashed across the space and made new light, 
Glowing upon the glow of evening, 
So swiftly now she came, inspired with woe, 
Strong with the strength of all her father's pain, 
Thrilling her as with fire of rage divine 
And battling energy. She knew — saw all : 
The stake with Silva bound — her father pierced — - 
To this she had been born : a second time 
Her father called her to the task of life. 

She knelt beside him. Then he raised himself, 

And on her face there flashed from his the light 

As of a star that waned, but flames anew 

In mighty dissolution : 'twas the flame 

Of a surviving trust, in agony. 

He spoke the parting prayer that was command 

Must sway her will, and reign invisibly.] 



248 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

ZARCA. 
My daughter, you have promised — you will live 
To save our people. In my garments here 
I carry written pledges from the Moor : 
He will keep faith in Spain and Africa. 
Your weakness may be stronger than my strength, 
Winning more love. ... I cannot tell the 

end. . . . 
I held my people's good within my breast, 
Behold, now I deliver it to you. 
See, it still breathes unstrangled — if it dies, 
Let not your failing will be murderer. . . . 
Rise, tell our people now I wait in pain . . . 
I cannot die until I hear them say 
They will obey you. 

[Meek, she pressed her lips 
With slow solemnity upon his brow, 
Sealing her pledges. Firmly then she rose, 
And met her people's eyes with kindred gaze, 
Dark-flashing, fired by effort strenuous 
Trampling on pain.] 

Fedalma. 

Ye Zincali all, who hear ! 
Your Chief is dying : I his daughter live 
To do his dying will. He asks you now 
To promise me obedience as your Queen, 
That we may seek the land he won for us, 
And live the better life for which he toiled. 
Speak now, and fill my father's dying ear 
With promise that you will obey him dead, 
Obeying me his child. 

[Straightway arose 
A shout of promise, sharpening into cries 
That seemed to plead despairingly with death.] 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 249 

The Zincali. 

We will obey ! Our Chief shall never die! 
We will obey him — will obey our Queen ! 

[The shout unanimous, the concurrent rush 

Of many voices, quiring shook the air 

With multitudinous wave : now rose, now fell, 

Then rose again, the echoes following slow, 

As if the scattered brethren of the tribe 

Had caught afar and joined the ready vow. 

Then some could hold no longer, but must rush 

To kiss his dying feet, and some to kiss 

The hem of their Queen's garment. But she 

raised 
Her hand to hush them. "Hark! your Chief 

may speak 
Another wish." Quickly she kneeled again, 
While they upon the ground kept motionless, 
With head outstretched. They heard his words ; 

for now, 
Grasping at Nadar's arm, he spoke more loud, 
As one who, having fought and conquered, hurls 
His strength away with hurling off his shield.] 

Zarca. 

Let loose the Spaniard ! give him back his sword ; 
He cannot move to any vengeance more — 
His soul is locked 'twixt two opposing crimes. 
I charge you let him go unharmed and free 
Now through your midst. . . . 

[With that he sank again — 
His breast heaved strongly tow'rd sharp sudden 

falls, 
And all his life seemed needed for each breath : 
Yet once he spoke.] 



2 5° 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



My daughter, lay your arm 
Beneath my head . . . so . . . bend and breathe 

on me. 
I cannot see you more . . . the Night is come. 
Be strong . . . remember ... I can only . . . 

die. 

[His voice went into silence, but his breast 
Heaved long and moaned : its broad strength 

kept a life 
That heard nought, saw nought, save what once 

had been, 
And what might be in days and realms afar — 
Which now in pale procession faded on 
Toward the thick darkness. And she bent 

above 
In sacramental watch to see great Death, 
Companion of her future, who would wear 
Forever in her eyes her father's form.] 

And yet she knew that hurrying feet had gone 
To do the Chief's behest, and in her soul 
He who was once its lord was being jarred 
With loosening of cords, that would not loose 
The tightening torture of his anguish. This — * 
Oh, she knew it ! — knew it as martyrs knew 
The prongs that tore their flesh, while yet their 

tongues 
Refused the ease of lies. In moments high 
Space widens in the soul. And so she knelt, 
Clinging with piety and awed resolve 
Beside this altar of her father's life, 
Seeing long travel under solemn suns 
Stretching beyond it ; never turned her eyes, 
Yet felt that Silva passed ; beheld his face 
Pale, vivid, all alone, imploring her 
Across black waters fathomless. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



251 



And he passed. 
The Gypsies made wide pathway, shrank aloof 
As those who fear to touch the thing they hate, 
Lest hate triumphant, mastering all the limbs, 
Should tear, bite, crush, in spite of hindering will. 
Slowly he walked, reluctant to be safe 
And bear dishonored life which none assailed ; 
Walked hesitatingly, all his frame instinct 
With high-born spirit, never used to dread 
Or crouch for smiles, yet stung, yet quivering 
With helpless strength, and in his soul convulsed 
By visions where pale horror held a lamp 
Over wide-reaching crime. Silence hung round : 
It seemed the Placa hushed itself to hear 
His footsteps and the Chief's deep dying breath. 
Eyes quickened in the stillness, and the light 
Seemed /me clear gaze upon his misery, 
And yet he could not pass her without pause : 
One instant he must pause and look at her ; 
But with that glance at her averted head, 
New-urged by pain he turned away and went, 
Carrying forever with him what he fled — 
Her murdered love — her love, a dear wronged 

ghost, 
Facing him, beauteous, 'mid the throngs of hell. 

O fallen and forsaken ! were no hearts 
Amid that crowd, mindful of what had been? — 
Hearts such as wait on beggared royalty, 
Or silent watch by sinners who despair ? 

Silva had vanished. That dismissed revenge 
Made larger room for sorrow in fierce hearts ; 
And sorrow filled them. For the Chief was dead 
The mighty breast subsided slow to calm, 
Slow from the face the ethereal spirit waned, 
As wanes the parting glory from the heights, 



252 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And leaves them in their pallid majesty. 

Fedalma kissed the marble lips, and said, 

'* He breathes no more/' And then a long loud 

wail, 
Poured out upon the morning, made her light 
Ghastly as smiles on some fair maniac's face 
Smiling unconscious o'er her bridegroom's corse. 
The wailing men in eager press closed round, 
And made a shadowing pall beneath the sun. 
They lifted reverent the prostrate strength, 
Sceptred anew by death. Fedalma walked 
Tearless, erect, following the dead — her cries 
Deep smothering in her breast, as one who guides 
Her children through the wilds, and sees and 

knows 
Of danger more than they, and feels more pangs, 
Yet shrinks not, groans not, bearing in her heart 
Their ignorant misery and their trust in her. 



BOOK V. 

The eastward rocks of Aimer ia's bay 
Answer long farewells of the travelling 1 sun 
With softest glow as from an inward pulse 
Changing and flushing : all the Moorish ships 
Seem conscious too, and shoot out sudden 

shadows ; 
Their black hulls snatch a glory, and their sails 
Show variegated radiance, gently stirred 
Like broad wings poised. Two galleys moored 

apart 
Show decks as busy as a home of ants 
Storing new forage ; from their sides the boats, 
Slowly pushed off, anon with flashing oar 
Make transit to the quay's smooth-quarried edge, 
Where thronging Gypsies are in haste to lade 
Each as it comes with grandames, babes, and 

wives, 
Or with dust-tinted goods, the company 
Of wandering years. Nought seems to lie un- 
moved, 
For 'mid the throng the lights and shadows play, 
And make all surface eager, while the boats 
Sway restless as a horse that heard the shouts 
And surging hum incessant. Naked limbs 
With beauteous ease bend, lift, and throw, or raise 
High signalling hands. The black-haired mother 

steps 
Athwart the boat's edge, and with opened arms, 
A wandering Isis outcast from the gods, 



254 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



Leans toward her lifted little one. The boat 
Full-laden cuts the waves, and dirge-like cries 
Rise and then fall within it as it moves 
From high to lower and from bright to dark. 
Hither and thither, grave white-turbaned Moors 
Move helpfully, and some bring welcome gifts, 
Bright stuffs and cutlery, and bags of seed 
To make new waving crops in Africa. 
Others aloof with folded arms slow-eyed 
Survey man's labor, saying, " God is great ;" 
Or seek with question deep the Gypsies' root, 
And whether their false faith, being small, will 

prove 
Less damning than the copious false creeds 
Of Jews and Christians : Moslem subtlety 
Found balanced reasons, warranting suspense 
As to whose hell was deepest — 'twas enough 
That there was room for all. Thus the sedate, 
The younger heads were busy with the tale 
Of that great Chief whose exploits helped trie 

Moor. 
And, talking still, they shouldered past their 

friends 
Following some lure which held their distant ga^e 
To eastward of the quay, where yet remained 
A low black tent close guarded all around 
By well-armed Gypsies. Fronting it above, 
Raised by stone steps that sought a jutting strand 
Fedalma stood and marked with anxious watch 
Each laden boat the remnant lessening 
Of cargo on the shore, or traced the course 
Of Nadar to and fro in hard command 
Of noisy tumult ; imaging oft anew 
How much of labor still deferred the hour 
When they must lift the boat and bear away 
Her father's coffin, and her feet must quit 
This shore forever. Motionless she stood. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 255 

Black-crowned with wreaths of many-shadowed 

hair ; 
Black-robed, but bearing- wide upon her breast 
Her father's golden necklace and his badge. 
Her limbs were motionless, but in her eyes 
And in her breathing lip's soft tremulous curve 
Was intense motion as of prisoned fire 
Escaping subtly in outleaping thought. 

She watches anxiously, and yet she dreams : 
The busy moments now expand, now shrink 
To narrowing swarms within the refluent space 
Of changeful consciousness. For in her thought 
Already she has left the fading shore, 
Sails with her people, seeks an unknown land, 
And bears the burning length of weary days 
That parching fall upon her father's hope, 
Which she must plant and see it wither only- 
Wither and die. She saw the end begun. 
The Gypsy hearts were not unfaithful : she 
Was centre to the savage loyalty 
Which vowed obedience to Zarca dead. 
But soon their natures missed the constant stress 
Of his command, that, while it fired, restrained 
By urgency supreme, and left no play 
To fickle impulse scattering desire. 
They loved their Queen, trusted in Zarca's child, 
Would bear her o'er the desert on their arms 
And think the weight a gladsome victory ; 
But that great force which knit them into one ? 
The invisible passion of her father's soul, 
That wrought them visibly into its will, 
And would have bound their lives with perma- 
nence, 
Was gone. Already Hassan and two bands, 
Drawn by fresh baits of gain, had newly sold 
Their service to the Moors, despite her call, 



256 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Known as the echo of her father's will, 

To all the tribe, that they should pass with her 

Straightway to Telemsan. They were not moved 

By worse rebellion than the wilful wish 

To fashion their own service ; they still meant 

To come when it should suit them. But she 

said, 
This is the cloud no bigger than a hand, 
Sure-threatening. In a little while, the tribe 
That was to be the ensign of the race, * 
And draw it into conscious union, 
Itself would break in small and scattered bands 
That, living on scant prey, would still disperse 
And propagate forgetfulness. Brief years, 
And that great purpose fed with vital fire 
That might have glowed for half a century, 
Subduing, quickening, shaping, like a sun — 
Would be a faint tradition, flickering low 
In dying memories, fringing with dim light 
The nearer dark. 

Far, far the future stretched 
Beyond that busy present on the quay, 
Far her straight path beyond it. Yet she watched 
To mark the growing hour, and yet in dream 
Alternate she beheld another track, 
And felt herself unseen pursuing it 
Close to a wanderer, who with haggard gaze 
Looked out on loneliness. The backward years — 
Oh, she would not forget them — would not drink 
Of waters that brought rest, while he far off 
Remembered. <4 Father, I renounced the joy ; 
You must forgive the sorrow." 

So she stood, 
Her struggling life compressed into that hour, 
Yearning, resolving, conquering ; though she 

seemed 
Still as a tutelar}' image sent 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 257 

To guard her people and to be the strength 
Of some rock-citadel. 

Below her sat 
Slim mischievous Hinda, happy, red-bedecked 
With rows of berries, grinning, nodding oft, 
And shaking high her small dark arm and hand 
Responsive to the black-maned Ismael, 
Who held aloft his spoil, and clad in skins 
Seemed the Boy-prophet of the wilderness 
Escaped from tasks prophetic. But anon 
Hinda would backward turn upon her knees, 
And like a pretty loving hound would bend 
To fondle her Queen's feet, then lift her head 
Hoping to feel the gently pressing palm 
Which touched the deeper sense. Fedalma 

knew — 
From out the black robe stretched her speaking 

hand 
And shared the girl's content. 

So the dire hours 
Burthened with destiny — the death of hopes 
Darkening long generations, or the birth 
Of thoughts undying — such hours sweep along 
In their aerial ocean measureless 
Myriads of little joys, that ripen sweet 
And soothe the sorrowful spirit of the world, 
Groaning and travailing with the painful birth 
Of slow redemption. 

But emerging now 
From eastward fringing lines of idling men 
Quick Juan lightly sought the upward steps 
Behind Fedalma, and two paces off, 
With head uncovered, said in gentle tones, 
" Lady Fedalma ! " — (Juan's password now 
Used by no other), and Fedalma turned, 
Knowing who sought her. He advanced a 

step, 



258 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

And meeting straight her large calm questioning 

gaze, 
Warned her of some grave purport by a face 
That told of trouble. Lower still he spoke. 

Juan. 
Look from me, lady, toward a moving form 
That quits the crowd and seeks the lonelier 

strand — 
A tall and gray-clad pilgrim. . . . 

[Solemnly 
His ow tones fell on her, as if she passed 
Into religious dimness among tombs, 
Ana trod on names in everlasting rest. 
Lingeringly she looked, and then with voice 
Deep and yet soft, like notes from some long 

chord 
Responsive to thrilled air, said — ] 

Fed alma. 

It is he ! 

[Juan kept silence for a little space, 
With reverent caution, lest his lighter grief 
Might seem a wanton touch upon her pain. 
But time was urging him with visible flight, 
Changing the shadows : he must utter all.] 

Juan. 
That man was young when last I pressed his 

hand — 
In that dread moment when he left Bedmar. 
He has aged since : the week has made him gray. 
And yet I knew him — knew the white-streaked 

hair 
Before I saw his face, as I should know 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 



2 59 



The tear-dimmed writing of a friend. See now — 
Does he not linger — pause? perhaps expect . . 

[Juan pled timidly : Fedalma's eyes 

Flashed ; and through all her frame there ran the 

shock 
Of some sharp-wounding joy, like his who hastes* 
And dreads to come too late, and comes in time 
To press a loved hand dying. She was mute 
And made no gesture : all her being paused 
In resolution, as some leonine wave 
That makes a moment's silence ere it leaps.] 

Juan. 

He came from Carthagena, in a boat 

Too slight for safety ; yon small two-oared boat 

Below the rock ; the fisher-boy within 

AAvaits his signal. But the pilgrim waits. . . . 

Fed alma. 
Yes, I will go ! — Father, I owe him this, 
For loving me made all his misery. 
And we will look once more — will say farewell 
As in a solemn rite to strengthen us 
For our eternal parting. Juan, stay . 
Here in my place, to warn me, were there need 
And, Hinda, follow me ! 

[All men who watched 
Lost her regretfully, then drew content 
From thought that she must quickly come again, 
And filled the time with striving to be near. 

She, down the steps, along the sandy brink 

To where he stood, walked firm ; with quickened 

step 
The moment when each felt the other saw. 



260 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

He moved at sight of her : their glances met ; 
It seemed they could no more remain aloof 
Than nearing waters hurrying into one. 
Yet their steps slackened and they paused apart, 
Pressed backward by the force of memories 
Which reigned supreme as death above desire. 
Two paces off they stood and silently 
Looked at each other. Was it well to speak ? 
Could speech be clearer, stronger, tell them more 
Than that long gaze of their renouncing love ? 
They passed from silence hardly knowing how ; 
It seemed they heard each other's thought before.] 

Don Silva. 
I go to be absolved, to have my life 
Washed into fitness for an offering 
To injured Spain. But I have nought to give 
For that last injury to her I loved 
Better than I loved Spain. I am accurst 
Above all sinners, being made the curse 
Of her I sinned for. Pardon ? Penitence ? 
When they have done their utmost, still beyond 
Out of their reach stands Injury unchanged 
And changeless. I should see it still in heaven — 
Out of my reach, forever in my sight : 
Wearing your grief, 'twould hide the smiling 

seraphs. 
I bring no puling prayer, Fedalma — ask 
No balm of pardon that may soothe my soul 
For others' bleeding wounds : I am not come 
To say, " Forgive me :" you must not forgive, 
For you must see me ever as I am — 
Your father's . . . 

Fedalma. 

Speak it not ! Calamity 
Comes like a deluge and o'erfloods our crimes, 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 26 1 

Till sin is hidden in woe. You — I — we two, 
Grasping we knew not what, that seemed delight. 
Opened the sluices of that deep. 

Don Silva. 

We two ? — 
Fedalma, you were blameless, helpless. 

Fedalma. 

No! 
It shall not be that you did aught alone. 
For when we loved I willed to reign in you, 
And I was jealous even of the day 
If it could gladden you apart from me. 
And so, it must be that I shared each deed 
Our love was root of. 

Don Silva. 

Dear ! you share the woe — 
Nay, the worst dart of vengeance fell on you. 

Fedalma. 

Vengeance ! She does but sweep us with her 

skirts — 
She takes large space, and lies a baleful light 
Revolving with long years — sees children's 

children, 
Blights them in their prime. . . . Oh, if two 

lovers leaned 
To breathe one air and spread a pestilence, 
They would but lie two livid victims dead 
Amid the city of the dying. We 
With our poor petty lives have strangled one 
That ages watch for vainly. 

Don Silva. 

Deep despair 
Fills all your tones as with slow agony. 



262 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Speak words that narrow anguish to some shape: 
Tell me what dread is close before you ? 

Fed alma. 

None. 
No dread, but clear assurance of the end. 
My father held within his mighty frame 
A people's life : great futures died with him 
Never to rise, until the time shall ripe 
Some other hero with the will to save 
The outcast Zincali. 

Don Silva. 

And yet their shout — 
I heard it — sounded as the plenteous rush 
Of full-fed sources, shaking their wild souls 
With power that promised sway. 

Fed alma. 

Ah yes, that shout 
Came from full hearts : they meant obedience. 
But they are orphaned : their poor childish feet 
Are vagabond in spite of love, and stray 
Forgetful after little lures. For me — 
I am but as the funeral urn that bears 
The ashes of a leader. 

Don Silva. 

O great God ! 
What am I but a miserable brand 
Lit by mysterious wrath ? I lie cast down 
A blackened branch upon the desolate ground 
Where once I kindled ruin. I shall drink 
No cup of purest water but will taste 
Bitter with thy lone hopelessness, Fedalma. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 263 

Fedalma. 

Nay, Silva, think of me as one who sees 

A light serene and strong on one sole path 

Which she will tread till death . . . 

He trusted me, and I will keep his trust : 

My life shall be its temple. I will plant 

His sacred hope within the sanctuary 

And die its priestess — though I die alone, 

A hoary woman on the altar-step, 

Cold 'mid cold ashes. That is my chief good. 

The deepest hunger of a faithful heart 

Is faithfulness. Wish me nought else. And 

you — 
You too will live. . . . 

Don Silva. 

I go to Rome, to seek 
The right to use my knightly sword again ; 
The right to fill my place and live or die 
So that all Spaniards shall not curse my name. 
I sate one hour upon the barren rock 
And longed to kill myself ; but then I said, 
I will not leave my name in infamy, 
I will not be perpetual rottenness 
Upon the Spaniard's air. If I must sink 
At last to hell, I will not take my stand 
Among the coward crew who could not bear 
The harm themselves had done, which others 

bore. 
My young life yet may fill some fatal breach, 
And I will take no pardon, not my own, 
Not God's — no pardon idly on my knees ; 
But it shall come to me upon my feet 
And in the thick of action, and each deed 
That carried shame and wrong shall be the sting 
That drives me higher up the steep of honor 



264 THB SPANISH GYPSY. 

In deeds of duteous service to that Spain 
Who nourished me on her expectant breast, 
The heir of highest gifts. I will not fling 
My earthly being down for carrion 
To fill the air with loathing : I will be 
The living prey of some fierce noble death 
That leaps upon me while I move. Aloud 
I said, *.' I will redeem my name,'' and then — 
I know not if aloud : I felt the words 
Drinking up all my senses — 44 She still lives. 
I would not quit the dear familiar earth 
Where both of us behold the self -same sun, 
Where there can be no strangeness 'twixt our 

thoughts 
So deep as their communion." Resolute 
I rose and walked. — Fedalma, think of me 
As one who will regain the only life 
Where he is other than apostate — one 
Who seeks but to renew and keep the vows 
Of Spanish knight and noble. But the breach 
Outside those vows — the fatal second breach — 
Lies a dark gulf where I have nought to cast, 
Not even expiation — poor pretence, 
Which changes nought but what survives the 

past, 
And raises not the dead. That deep dark gulf 
Divides us. 

Fedalma. 

Yes, forever. We must walk 
Apart unto the end. Our marriage rite 
Is our resolve that we will each be true 
To high allegiance, higher than our love. 
Our dear young love — its breath was happiness ! 
But it had grown upon a larger life 
Which tore its roots asunder. We rebelled — 
The larger life subdued us. Yet we are wed ; 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 265 

For we shall carry each the pressure deep 
Of the other's soul. I soon shall leave the shore. 
The winds to-night will bear me far away 
My lord, farewell ! 

He did not say " Farewell." 
But neither knew that he was silent. She, 
For one long moment, moved not. They knew 

nought 
Save that they parted ; for their mutual gaze 
As with their soul's full speech forbade their 

hands 
To seek each other — those oft-clasping hands 
Which had a memory of their own, and went 
Widowed of one dear touch for evermore. 
At last she turned and with swift movement 

passed, 
Beckoning to Hinda, who was bending low 
And lingered still to wash her shells, but soon 
Leaping and scampering followed, while her 

Queen 
Mounted the steps again and took her place, 
Which Juan rendered silently. 

And now 
The press upon the quay was thinned ; the 

ground 
Was cleared of cumbering heaps, the eager shouts 
Had sunk, and left a murmur more restrained 
By common purpose. All the men ashore 
Were gathering into ordered companies, 
And with less clamor filled the waiting boats, 
As if the speaking light commanded them 
To quiet speed : for now the farewell glow 
Was on the topmost heights, and where far 

ships 
Were southward tending, tranquil, slow, and 
white 



2 66 THE SPANISH GYPSY. 

Upon the luminous meadow toward the verge. 
The quay was in still shadow, and the boats 
Went sombrely upon the sombre waves. 
Fedalma watched again ; but now her gaze 
Takes in the eastward bay, where that small bark 
Which held the fisher-boy floats weightier 
With one more life, that rests upon the oar 
Watching with her. He would not go away 
Till she was gone ; he would not turn his face 
Away from her at parting : but the sea 
Should widen slowly 'twixt their seeking eyes. 

The time was coming. Nadar had approached. 
Was the Queen ready ? Would she follow now 
Her father's body ? For the largest boat 
Was waiting at the quay, the last strong band 
Of Zincali had ranged themselves in lines 
To guard her passage and to follow her. 
11 Yes, I am ready ;" and with action prompt 
They cast aside the Gypsy's wandering tomb, 
And fenced the space from curious Moors who 

pressed 
To see Chief Zarca's coftin as it lay. 
They raised it slowly, holding it aloft 
On shoulders proud to bear the heavy load. 
Bound on the coffin lay the chieftain's arms, 
His Gypsy garments and his coat of mail. 
Fedalma saw the burthen lifted high, 
And then descending followed. All was still. 
The Moors aloof could hear the struggling steps 
Beneath the lowered burthen at the boat — 
The struggling calls subdued, till safe released 
It lay within, the space around it filled 
By black-haired Gypsies. Then Fedalma stepped 
From off the shore and saw it flee away — 
The land that bred her helping the resolve 
Which exiled her forever. 



THE SPANISH GYPSY. 267 

It was night 
Before the ships weighed anchor and gave sail : 
Fresh Night emergent in her clearness, lit 
By the large crescent moon, with Hesperus, 
And those great stars that lead the eager host. 
Fedalma stood and watched the little bark 
Lying jet-black upon moon-whitened waves. 
Silva was standing too. He too divined 
A steadfast form that held him with its thought; 
And eyes that sought him vanishing : he saw 
The waters widen slowly, till at last 
Spraining he gazed, and knew not if he gazed 
On aught but blackness overhung by stars. 



NOTES. 



P. 41. Cactus. 

The Indian fig (Opuntia), like the other Cacta* 
cece, is believed to have been introduced into Eu- 
rope from South America ; but every one who 
has been in the south of Spain will understand 
why the anachronism has been chosen. 

P. 142. Marranos. 

The name given by the Spanish Jews to the 
multitudes of their race converted to Christianity 
at the end of the fourteenth century and begin- 
ning of the fifteenth. The lofty derivation from 
Maran-atha, the Lord cometh, seems hardly 
called for, seeing that marrano is Spanish iorpig. 
The " old Christians " learned to use the word as 
a term of contempt for the "new Christians," or 
converted Jews and their descendants ; but not 
too monotonously, for they often interchanged it 
with the fine old crusted opprobrium of the name 
Jew. Still, many Marranos held the highest 
secular and ecclesiastical prizes in Spain, and 
were respected accordingly. 

P. 159. Celestial Baron. 

The Spaniards conceived their patron Santiago 
(St. James), the great captain of their armies, as 
a knight and baron : to them, the incongruity 



270 NOTES. 

would have lain in conceiving him simply as a 
Galilean fisherman. And their legend was 
adopted with respect by devout mediaeval minds 
generally. Dante, in an elevated passage of the 
Paradiso — the memorable opening of Canto xxv. 
— chooses to introduce the Apostle James as it 
barone. 

' ' Indi si mosse un lume verso noi 

Di quella schiera, ond 'usci la primizia 

Che lascio Cristo de' vicari suoi. 

E la mia Donna piena de letizia 

Mi disse : Mira, mira, ecco '1 barone 

Per cui laggiu si visita Galizia." 

P. 161. The Seven Parts. 

Las Siete Partidas (The Seven Parts) is the 
title given to the code of laws compiled under 
Alfonso the Tenth, who reigned in the latter half 
of the thirteenth century — 125 2-1 284. The pas- 
sage in the text is translated *rom Partida II. , 
Ley II. The whole preamble is worth citing in 
its old Spanish : — 

" Como deben ser escogidos los caba/leros." 

1 ' Antiguamiente para facer caballeros escogien 
de los venadores de monte, que son homes que 
sufren grande laceria, et carpinteros, et ferreros, 
et pedreros, porque usan mucho a ferir et son 
fuerte de manos ; et otrosi de los carniceros, por 
razon que usan matar las cosas vivas et esparcer 
la sangre dellas : et aun cataban otra cosa en es- 
cogiendolos que fuesen bien faccionadas de mem- 
bros para ser recios, et fuertes et ligeros. Et 
esta manera de escoger usaron los antiguos muy 
grant tiempo ; mas porque despues vieron muchas 
vegadas que estos atales non habiendo vergiienza 



NOTES. 271 

olvidaban todas estas cosas sobredichas, et en 
logar de vincer sus enemigos venciense ellos, 
tovieron por bien los sabidores destas cosas que 
catasen homes para esto que hobiesen natural- 
miente en si vergiienza. Et sobresto dixo un 
sabio que habie nombre Vegecio que fablo de la 
orden de caballeria, que la vergiienza vieda al 
caballero que non fuya de la batalla, et por ende 
ella le face ser vencedor ; ca mucho tovieron que 
era mejor el homo flaco et sofridor, que el fuerte 
et ligero para foir. Et por esto sobre todas las 
otras cosas cataron que fuesen homes porque se 
guardasen de facer cosa por que podiesen caer en 
vergiienza : et porque estos fueron escogidos de 
buenos logares et algo, que quiere tanto decir en 
lenguage de Espana como bien, por eso los 11a- 
maron fijosdalgo, que muestra atanto como fijos 
de bien. Et en algunos otros logares los llamaron 
gentiles, et tomaron este nombre de gentileza que 
muestra atanto como nobleza de bondat, porque 
los gentiles fueron nobles homes et buenos, et 
vevieron mas ordenadamente que las otras gentes. 
Et esta gentileza aviene en tres maneras ; la una 
por linage, la segunda por saber, et latercerapor 
bondat de armas et de costumbres et de maneras. 
Et comoquier que estos que la ganan por su 
sabidoria 6 por su bondat, son con derecho 
llamados nobles et gentiles, mayormiente lo son 
aquellos que la han por linage antiguamiente, et 
facen buena vida porque les viene de luene como 
por heredat : et por ende son mas encargados de 
facer bien et guardarse de yerro et de malestanza ; 
ca non tan solamiente quando lo facen resciben 
dano et vergiienza ellos mismos, ma aun aquellos 
onde ellos vienen." 



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